Lakers vs Hornets Picks, Prediction Today | Monday, Feb. 5

Here's everything you need to know about Lakers vs. Hornets on Monday, Feb. 5 — our expert prediction and betting picks for today.

Can the Lakers take care of business against the lowly Hornets or will Charlotte rally to defend their homecourt?

Let's get to our Lakers vs. Hornets prediction and pick.

Lebron and Anthony Davis are officially questionable but as long as they are able to go I expect the Lakers to blow out the Hornets. The Hornets do nothing good but they are especially bad at defending the rim where they rank 27^th in rim rate allowed and 24^th in rim FG% allowed.

This is not ideal when you are trying to defend a Laker offense that ranks second in offensive rim rate. We also have a Hornet defense that fouls at the ninth highest rate in the NBA going up against a Lakers offense that ranks seventh in free throw rate. Expect the Lakers offense to excel in this spot.

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The Hornets are on a back to back here and are coming off a brutal offensive performance against the Pacers. They shot 44.7% effectively from the field and posted an awful offensive rating of 101.1. This team has absolutely zero offensive identity without LaMelo Ball and they are certainly the worst team in the NBA without him and Center Mark Williams.

They now have an adjusted net-rating of -10.8 according to dunksandthrees.com. That places them dead-last in the NBA in net-rating and they are a full two points worse than the 29^th ranked Pistons (-8.7). They’ve failed to cover the spread in seven straight games so it is clear that they are even worse than market expectations. This will be another tough matchup for them as the Lakers are a much better defense than the Pacers.

Even just using the season-long numbers the Lakers are at least +10.5 points better than the Hornets on a neutral but the Hornets season-long data is filled with Lamelo and Mark Williams minutes. When those two are off the court the Hornets have a net-rating of -16.7 for the season.

When you factor in the back to back for the Hornets I would make this closer to Lakers -12.5 or Lakers -13 so I seem some value on backing the Lakers at 10.5 here. I wouldn’t play this past -12.5.

Pick: Lakers -11.5 (-110)

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