The Charlotte Hornets and the Detroit Pistons squared off on Thursday night in a battle of two up-and-coming teams that hope to take a step forward in the Eastern Conference this season. While neither of them are expected to compete for a championship or anything, both are built around promising young players and hope that better days are on the horizon.
One of the brightest young stars in Thursday’s game was Brandon Miller, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft who flashed as a rookie and has built on that in a big way during his second year in the league. Unfortunately for the Pistons, that meant finding out that Miller is a freak of nature, as evidenced by him making one of the best defensive plays you will ever see when he single-handedly blew up an attempted alley-oop by picking a Wendell Moore lob out of mid-air.
If Miller became horizontal during this, it’d look an awful lot like Odell Beckham Jr.’s famous one-handed catch from when he played for the Giants. Anyway, the Hornets won in overtime, 123-121, with Miller leading the way, as the former Alabama standout went for 38 points, seven rebounds, four assists, four steals, and a block in 42 minutes of work.