Charlotte Bobcats @ 76ers, 3/10/10
The Bobcats took care of business Wednesday night in Philadelphia, soundly defeating the 76ers 102-87. The Cats are now 32-31 and in 7th place in the East with 19 games left in the season.
AP recap here | Box score here
After briefly falling behind by a few points in the opening minutes of the game, the Cats got it rolling and went on to score 37 points in the opening quarter. They dominated the rest of the way, leading by as much as 29 late in the third quarter. The Cats shot 50% on the game and basically made this one look easy.
Gerald Wallace led the way with a 28 point effort on 9-10 FG and 10-11 FT. Stephen Jackson had another off night shooting the ball (6-19 FG, 2-7 3PT) but added 10-11 FTs for 24 points overall and added 10 rebounds for a double-double.
The Sixers looked dreadful in turning the ball over 20 times and committing 27 fouls, putting the Cats on the line for 41 free throw attempts.
What A Difference A Week Makes
Just seven days ago, the Bobcats were coming off a bad loss to the Celtics, their 6th out of 8 at the time. They had fallen a full game off the 8th playoff spot and their Hollinger projection had fallen down to around a 60% chance of making the playoffs.
Cut to tonight: the Cats have won four in a row, including rousing victories over the Lakers and Heat and tonight’s road win over the Sixers. The Cats are now in 7th place in the East, only a half-game out of the 6th spot, and hold the tiebreaker over the 8th place Heat.
DJ has his groove back (10 points, 5 assists tonight), Tyson Chandler is looking semi-competent as he works his way back into shape, and Gerald Henderson has broken into the rotation. If we can get Nazr Mohammed back into the lineup, we could potentially go 9 deep in the playoffs, with Henderson, Stevie Graham and Derrick Brown available for spot minutes in a pinch.
Tidbits
- As alluded to above, Tyson Chandler had his best game since coming back from his foot/ankle issues. He scored 12 points on 3-3 FG and 6-9 FT and added 5 rebounds in 15 minutes. Of course, that was against Sam Dalembert, Elton Brand and Jason Smith, but whatever.
- Next game is Friday night — the Cats will be hosting the similarly reeling LA Clippers at 7 PM ET. The Clips have lost 5 in a row, and will be on game 5 of a 6 game road trip. I’ll be there tweeting live at the Cable Box.
not an understatement, check the vocab, courtesy Merriam-Webster
"decimate"
Pronunciation: ˈde-sə-ˌmāt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): dec·i·mat·ed; dec·i·mat·ing
Etymology: Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare, from decimus tenth, from decem ten
Date: 1660
1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of
2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from
3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number b : TO CAUSE GREAT DESTRUCTION OR HARM TO (emphasis mine)
"decimate" is an understatement.
see, i was thinking along the line of: "obliterated".
ob·lit·er·ate [uh-blit-uh-reyt] Show IPA
–verb (used with object),-at·ed, -at·ing.
1.
to remove or destroy all traces of; do away with; destroy completely.
2.
to blot out or render undecipherable (writing, marks, etc.); efface.
This is were the Cats establish a “take no prisoners” attitude. Keep playing solid ball and solid results will happen. Can’t go back to the old garbage baskeball now. When they play like they are now, I see the playoffs in their future. Consistency is a good vocabulary word for this team to adopt. Tell Erik Leckner I said “whaddup”