Brandon Miller said the Charlotte Hornets are bracing for a tight, physical game tonight when they host the Miami Heat in a play-in tournament game in Charlotte. The winner advances to the road Friday to face the loser of Wednesday’s game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Orlando Magic, with a chance to reach the first round and meet East No. 1 seed Detroit Pistons.
Miller said Charlotte wants to lean on transition and tempo if it can find them. The Hornets’ 6-foot-7 wing, who averaged 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists this season, said the plan is to play to the team’s strengths, push the pace and get its defensive habits back up.
Charlotte earned this shot after finishing the season 44-38, a sharp climb for a club that opened 4-14. Miami enters as the East’s 10th seed, which makes tonight a one-game test of how much either side has left after a long regular season and before the bracket tightens again. The Hornets are the ninth seed.
For Miller, the game also carries a personal detour. He grew up in Antioch, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville, and said the first time he saw Antron Brown race at a Charlotte NHRA event in 2024 left a mark. Hornets chief marketing officer Seth J. Bennett arranged that visit for Miller and his parents, giving them a front-row look at drag racing and Brown’s 300 mph Top Fuel dragster on the quarter-mile track.
Brown is a four-time NHRA Top Fuel champion, with titles in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2024. His latest championship came as the team owner of AB Sports, and he is the first African American driver to win four titles in his field. Miller called that achievement big for African Americans and said he admired the Black culture around racing, as well as the bravery it takes to sit in a car and launch down the strip at that speed.
He said the atmosphere around drag racing is different from basketball, but the two can still connect through focus and preparation. Miller described the races as lasting about four seconds, calling them loud and intense, and said he was glad to see Brown on the winning side most of the time. That respect shapes the backdrop to the Hornets’ own must-win night: a young team trying to keep moving, and one of its most visible players borrowing a little courage from another kind of speed.
