Melton leads Warriors bench in win over Hornets

SAN FRANCISCO — De'Anthony Melton has become the spark off of the bench the Golden State Warriors have come to rely on.

Melton's 24 points led Golden State to a 136-116 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday evening at Chase Center.

Golden State has won three games in a row and are 5-1 on their current homestand. They are 16-6 overall at home with the second most home win in the Western Conference, behind only Oklahoma City. Charlotte went 1-2 on their West Coast road trip with their lone win against the Los Angeles Lakers 135-117 back on Thursday night.

The Warriors led wire-to-wire in this game, but the up-and-coming Hornets stayed competitive and was able to cut their deficit to just three points down 82-79 with 6:20 left in the third quarter after a Stephen Curry turnover led to a Kon Knueppel layup down on the opposite end.

Melton then led the Warriors on a 20-5 run, where he scored eight of the 20, as the home team regained control of the game as they went up 102-84 with 2:48 remaining in the third quarter, a lead that proved to be insurmountable for the Hornets to overcome.

"Man everything, everything for real" said Melton about his impact coming off of the bench. "I just feel like I can get to the basket at any point. I feel like I can be aggressive and make something for my teammates, so that's what I try to do. I just kept ending up at the basket, so I just kept shooting it. But I felt good, I felt good, my body felt good, and I knew with no Jimmy, we had to make up some of those points, some of those rebounds, assists, all that stuff, so I just tried to stay on top of that, and I think myself and everybody else, we did such a good job of just making up for whatever we needed."

A late game scratch to the starting lineup that happened right before tipoff could have led to chaos for Golden State when Jimmy Butler III did not play for personal reasons. Warriors head coach Steve Kerr inserted rookie guard Will Richard to replace Butler and Richard played well his 30 plus minutes of action, scoring 11 points as he was one of eight players to score in double digits for Golden State.

The Warriors bench, which has found its groove over the past week, once again proved to be the difference in the game. They outscored the Hornets bench 70-49 led by Melton's 24. Brandin Podziemski chipped in 16 points, Al Horford had 11 and there was a Buddy Hield sighting as he contributed 14 points in just under 18 minutes on the floor.

It was a quiet day for Curry as he was held to just 14 points on 6 of 12 shooting, including 2 of 8 from beyond the arc, as Charlotte spent all their attention trying to contain number 30 every second he was on the floor. A defensive scheme power forward Draymond Green openly mocked during his post-game press conference.

"I’ve seen coaches get fired for playing that defense, and it just doesn’t work,” Greed said. “They’re kind of just leaving us open. Playing all five guys to take Steph (Curry) out the game. So, if you drove, kick, everybody was shooting open threes, and it was great. We was able to knock them down, make them pay for playing gimmicky defense.”

At least 10 Warriors players hit a three pointer in the game for the third consecutive game, led by Green who led the Warriors in threes with four on eight attempts.

Hornets head coach Charles Lee praised his team for not allowing Curry to have a big game offensively but criticized his team's overall defensive effort.

"For the most part, if you're able to hold him (Curry) to 14, that's pretty good. A lot of the roll guys hurt us tonight at different moments and I just think we weren't sharp enough defensively with our execution. Overall, the guys continued to fight and continued to compete. You get it down to three, and then I think Green hits a corner three, and I think we got it to like eight, and we hit a top-of-the-key three. So we were kind of right there, even not being as sharp as we usually are and have been.”

Brandon Miller led Charlotte in scoring with 28 points but the player that stood out for the Hornets was their rookie forward Knueppel who contributed 24 points in just under 30 minutes of playing time. The 4th overall pick of the 2025 draft out of Duke proved why he was selected as high as he was. Knueppel has a sweet stroke from beyond the arc and has the ability to score from anywhere on the court. Collin Sexton led the Hornets bench with 17 points and LaMelo Ball chipped in with 15 points.

Golden State has two more games left on their eight-game homestand with the Miami Heat coming in next on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Kerr believes it's no coincidence the Warriors longest homestand of the season has led to his team's recent success.

“Yeah, we're in a good groove. We needed this homestand, and we've got two games left on the homestand. So, we've got to keep it going. Two tough teams coming in but this is the most momentum we've had since we started out 4-1. It feels good, it feels like a lot of guys are really contributing, and we're really taking care of the ball night after night and allowing ourselves to get shots on goal over and over again. When we do that, you see how much firepower we have. So that's been the big shift, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it came on this homestand with lots of rest. It's the first time we've felt really settled, I think in a while," Kerr said.