There’s something different going on with the Charlotte Bobcats this year, and it’s a good thing. This is no longer the league’s pushovers but actually a decent team who can make a little bit of noise and do a little bit of damage.
This past weekend I visited Charlotte to see the Cats take on the Los Angeles Lakers. Now I’ve seen quite a few stars, past and present play in person but before Saturday I never saw Kobe Bryant. Seeing the Black Mamba was a once in a lifetime event in its own, I even saw him do one of his famous faders. Kobe took over in the fourth quarter which was no surprise but the Bobcats were the ones who took me off guard.
I’ve been paying close attention to the Cats and the one thing that’s made them drastically improve is their focus on defense. In past seasons, these guys couldn’t stop anybody from scoring and then would easily get stopped from scoring. That’s one of the main reasons the Cats lost, but that’s changing Coach Clifford has gotten these guys to commit on defense which has opened up their offense opportunities.
Beforehand this team would pass so much that they couldn’t even get a good shot off. Now if someone has a good shot they’ll take and with Al Jefferson on the roster, Kemba Walker and Gerald Henderson are doing a better job creating their own offense.
Now I realize I’m talking like the Cats won, which they didn’t, but there were far more positives this time around. The one negative that is very obvious is this team’s inability to close games out. This season they’ve dropped quite a few close games after letting the opponent come back in games where Charlotte was in control the entire time. I won’t be too hard on them though as they did get beat by Kobe, that happens to everyone.
The most inspiring aspect of the Cats’ season is the fans. I don’t know if it’s the fact that the team isn’t losing as much as before or maybe that the Hornets nickname is coming back but the fans are back. I’ve been to countless Bobcats games over the years where I’ve seen the home team get booed in favor of the away team. You would think that would happen with LakerNation in town but it didn’t. When things didn’t go the Bobcats way the crowd booed and when Laker fans started cheering the crowd shut them down. Even during a timeout the Cats did a segment where they called out all of the bandwagon Laker fans, which was hilarious.
Although I’ve been to countless games there before, I had never seen the fan support be that strong. Bobcats fans stood up proud for their team and didn’t back down from the opposition fans. A little bit of winning can do that for a team. Also I feel pretty glad that the Cats haven’t made me sound like a fool when I said watch out for them before the season started. Hopefully they deliver a win Tomorrow night when I watch them face off against the Sacramento Kings, courtesy of my Sports Passion fam.
Everick Davis Jr.
Was good though, it's me Everick Davis Jr. Born and raised in Portsmouth Virginia, I'm currently a senior at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I watch every sport (not so much golf) but I am huge on the NBA. My favorite players right now are J.R. Smith, Russell Westbrook & Nick Young. Drinking beer and watching sports is my favorite past time and I do it year round! I used to play basketball on the regular until everyone else kept growing and I still stood at 5'6. So that's when I channeled my efforts into becoming the next Stephen A Smith or anything close to that. I currently write for "The Carolinian" newspaper in Greensboro, NC and intern for http://theurbantwist.com/ Random Fact about me, I love anime, my favorite one is One Piece! Second random fact, I got beatz! check me out http://www.reverbnation.com/ielabs
