Mavericks Hosting Surging Hornets While Retiring Legend's Number

The Dallas Mavericks are back on a losing streak, having lost the last two games against the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves. It's now the second night of a back-to-back for the Mavericks, and they're going to be facing the red-hot... Charlotte Hornets?

For the casual NBA fans, no team has been a bigger surprise in January than the Hornets. Since the start of the year, they're 9-6, but they've been road warriors, knocking off the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, LA Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers, and others. They're 7-3 on the road this month, and their wins away from home have come by a ridiculous average of 25.4 PPG. They also enter this game riding a four-game winning streak after beating the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday, and they've already won more games this year (20) than they did last year (19).

A big reason for this surge has been the return of Brandon Miller. The talented third-year player has dealt with a lot of injuries in his career, but in the 14 games he's played this month, he's averaging 21.7 PPG and 5.1 RPG on nearly 50/40/90 shooting. He just put up 30 points and 8 rebounds against the 76ers a few days ago, and is living up to his draft billing.

LaMelo Ball has also been healthy this month, and since they have Brandon Miller back, Ball can focus on dishing dimes to Miller and star rookie Kon Knueppel, who has been an electric shooter this year. Knueppel, who was teammates with Cooper Flagg at Duke last year, is averaging 18.6 PPG while shooting 43.1% from three. He's already knocked down 153 three-pointers, which is not too far away from breaking Keegan Murray's rookie record of 206. He should break that in about 15 games or so.