Bridges and Green light up Suns as Hornets pull away late

Charlotte didn’t just win this one — it started taking control the moment the second quarter turned into a runway for Miles Bridges.

The Suns come out firing and actually seize the early edge, using a 41-point first quarter to open up a 10-point lead. Devin Booker is in rhythm from the jump, finishing with 22 points, five boards and six assists, while Jalen Green keeps Charlotte within striking distance with his scoring punch. But the Hornets never look rattled, and the first real swing comes in the second quarter when the game is sitting at 57-60. Bridges catches an alley-oop from LaMelo Ball and detonates it home for an 11-0 burst that flips the score to 68-60. That’s the turning point: the Hornets go from chasing to dictating, and the energy in the building changes immediately.

From there, Charlotte starts layering in answers. LaMelo Ball isn’t hunting shots so much as steering traffic, piling up 11 assists in just 25 minutes, and his fingerprints are all over the Hornets’ best offensive stretches. Ryan Kalkbrenner gives them a huge lift on the back line too, posting eight points, seven rebounds and four blocks, including a late-game block sequence that helps slam the door. Charlotte’s offense isn’t just one guy going nuclear — it’s Bridges attacking, Ball setting the table, and Knueppel spacing the floor. Knueppel finishes with 20 points, and one of the biggest moments of the third quarter comes when he knocks down a three to cap a 9-0 run. That stretch pushes the Hornets from 94-85 to 102-85 and takes the last bit of suspense out of the night.

Jalen Green makes sure Charlotte’s lead doesn’t come apart. He scores 25 points, adds four rebounds and seven assists, and keeps punishing Phoenix whenever the Suns try to chip back. He hits a running dunk with 4:11 left in the fourth, then later flips the scoreboard with a pair of defensive plays in crunch time — a block at 3:43, another at 1:28, and a steal by Kalkbrenner at 1:15 that effectively freezes the game. Green’s value isn’t just the scoring; it’s how he keeps the Suns from ever stringing together a real run when the margin is still manageable.

Bridges ties Green for the team-high with 25 points of his own, and he does it efficiently, shooting 62% from the field. His late 3-pointer at 4:48 pushes Charlotte to 125-104 and makes the final stretch a formality. That’s after already setting the tone with the second-quarter alley-oop and helping Charlotte outclass Phoenix in the middle periods, where the Hornets build a 102-87 lead after three. The Suns keep trading buckets, but every time they threaten to make it interesting, Charlotte answers with a cleaner shot, a stronger finish at the rim, or a defensive stop that stops the bleeding.

For Phoenix, Booker’s 22 points and six assists are solid, but the Suns never fully recover after surrendering that second-quarter run. They hang around in the first half, then watch Charlotte’s shot-making and pace steadily widen the gap. By the time Mann’s floating jumper caps the final score at 127-107, the outcome is long decided. The Hornets are now 20 points better on the scoreboard and, more importantly, they look like a team that can lean on multiple creators, rim pressure and a real defensive backbone when the game starts to tilt. For Phoenix, this is another reminder that early offense only matters if it travels with enough resistance on the other end. For Charlotte, it’s the kind of win that reinforces how dangerous this group can be when Bridges, Green and Ball all have the game moving in the same direction.