Charlotte Bobcats vs 76ers, 3/31/10

The Charlotte Bobcats posted an easy win over the Philadelphia 76ers, 103-84, on Wednesday night at the Cable Box.  The Cats improve to 39-35 but remain in seventh place in the East, a game-and-a-half behind Miami, who also won Wednesday night.

AP recap here |  Box score here

After feeling out the Sixers in the first few minutes of the game, the Cats took control, building a double digit lead by early in the second quarter.  The Sixers briefly cut the lead to single digits before the half and again right after, but the Cats dominated the rest of the way.

Gerald Wallace led the Cats with 24 points (8-11 FG, 3-3 alley-oops, 2-3 3PT, 6-10 FT), 12 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.  Tyson Chandler had easily his best game since returning from injury (and probably one of his best games all year, really) with 15 points (4-5 FG, 7-8 FT), 6 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal in 23 minutes off the bench.

The Sixers generally looked like the Bad News Bears.  With Lou Williams, Rodney Carney and Thad Young all out with injuries, and Andre Igoudala reportedly dealing with plantar fasciitis, the Sixers didn’t have much of a shot to begin with.  They settled for jump shots (only 11 FTs compared to the Bobcats 35), turned the ball over an astonishing 25 times (rookie Jrue Holiday accounted for 7) and were probably lucky they didn’t get beat by 30.

Tidbits

• Bill Simmons called Elton Brand’s contract (4 years, $66 million) the second worst in the league, (behind Gilbert Arenas: 5 years, $96 million), but Brand might vault ahead of Gil soon.  Dude is just dreadful.
• Had a question from @kimosabe71 on Twitter about Raymond Felton tonight and wanted to expand on it a bit here. Felton is quietly having his best season ever.  A look at his stats shows that he’s sporting a career best 15.4 PER (had been in the 13.5-13.9 range the past three seasons), mostly due to shooting a career best 46% from the field.  That, in turn, is due to better shot selection, which itself is largely due to the presence of an alpha-dog offensive threat in Stephen Jackson.  So what I’m saying is that when Raymond gets a fat contract this offseason, he needs to treat Jack to a steak.  Or a Bentley — whatever NBA players do these days to thank each other.
• Post-game locker room jibber-jabber.
• It’s really starting to look like the Cats don’t have much of a chance to catch Miami for the 6th spot.  That’s a shame, because we really would have a chance to make some noise in the playoffs against Atlanta or Boston.  Orlando, not so much.  And don’t even get me started on the inane suggestion that we’d be better off slipping to the 8th spot and facing the Cavs in the first round.  That’s borderline moronic, our flukey 3-1 record against them this regular season notwithstanding.
• Next game is Friday night at the Cable Box versus the surprising 5th place Milwaukee Bucks, 7 PM ET.

-Dr. E