Hornets 110, Nets 103. Flyers 3, Sabres 1. Two home losses, different problems.

Brooklyn opened its season with a 110-103 loss to Charlotte at Barclays Center. Buffalo lost 3-1 to Philadelphia at KeyBank Center. Both were official finals Wednesday night, but their explanations belong in separate accounts: the Nets could not turn two strong scoring lines into a win, while the Sabres spent the night trying to recover from a two-goal first period.

Brooklyn gets 59 from its leading pair

Julius Randle scored 33 points with eight rebounds and seven assists for Brooklyn. Michael Porter Jr. added 26 points and seven rebounds. Together they supplied 59 of the Nets' 103 points; the rest of the team supplied 44. Their scoring kept Brooklyn in the game without settling it.

Charlotte made 41 of 93 field-goal attempts to Brooklyn's 36 of 80. The Hornets hit 15 threes to the Nets' 12, despite Brooklyn shooting the better percentage from outside. Grayson Allen led Charlotte with 21 points. Naz Reid had 20 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, while Dennis Schröder scored 19. The winning offense had more than one source.

Brooklyn made 19 free throws to Charlotte's 13, but that six-point edge could not offset the difference in baskets. The Nets also committed 22 individual turnovers to the Hornets' 20 and were outrebounded 44-38. An opener is a small sample. It is enough to identify where this loss came from, not enough to pronounce a season's ceiling.

Buffalo cannot erase the first-period deficit

In Buffalo, Cole Knuble scored his first two NHL goals in Philadelphia's 3-1 victory. His first came at 14:49 of the opening period. Trevor Zegras added a power-play goal at 19:17, giving the Flyers a 2-0 lead before the first intermission.

Jason Zucker answered on the power play at 19:25 of the second period, scoring in his season debut and cutting the deficit to one. Knuble restored Philadelphia's two-goal lead 3:03 into the third. The timing matters: Buffalo's late second-period goal created an opening, but the Flyers closed it early in the next period.

Dan Vladar made 27 saves for Philadelphia, while Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 23 for Buffalo. The Sabres finished ahead 28-26 in shots but did not find an equalizer. The loss ended Buffalo's four-game point streak. The team's next game is scheduled for Saturday in Washington, with a 7 p.m. Eastern puck drop.

For the Nets, the task is to build enough around Randle and Porter to make their scoring travel further. For the Sabres, Zucker's return supplied a goal but not a rescued result. Those are useful starting points for the next games. Combining the two losses into a general verdict about New York sports would explain neither one.