It was a sweet showcase for NBA fans who normally don't pay the Bobcats any mind. Win or lose, we knew by the middle of the second quarter both teams were determined to put on a show, on a night the Cats and Knicks played the only pro hoops game on the schedule. They went back and forth in front of a riled up crowd, but only one team could win, and New York finally came out on top, winning 97-93 (BOX SCORE).
Highlights and lowlights after the jump.
BAD-- Though Stephen Jackson has been better than solid recently, he's also still a volume scorer who has to jack up shot after shot to get his points. It's somewhat more palatable to let him do that because he has such a varied skill set that it makes the opposition have to stretch to defend him, but scoring 26 points on 26(!) attempts from the field is too inefficient for my taste.
-- A similar criticism is appropriate for Raymond Felton, who shot 4-14 from the field, mitigated somewhat by 2-4 from three. Though his shooting percentage has been much better most of this season than it was in past seasons, that's partly a function of shooting less and partly of better shot selection. Again, he's not a good enough scorer to justify taking that many shots, especially when, as point guard, it comes at the expense of possessions in which he's facilitating the offense.
-- Hey, Stephen Graham was pointlessly in the game again while Gerald Henderson sat. I'd love to hear the reasoning for this ongoing travesty straight from the horse's mouth instead of reading endless speculation as to what kind of horrible information Graham has on Larry Brown that would be blackmail-worthy.
GOOD
-- This is why Gerald Wallace is an All Star this season. His scoring wasn't anything special, with 13 points on 12 attempts, but he was a major reason Danilo Gallinari struggled mightily until the final minutes of the fourth quarter, and he still led the team with 9 rebounds.
-- Welcome back, Boris Diaw. All we need from Boris is for him to play to his career averages. Scoring isn't as important as his assists, and a slight uptick in rebounding would be nice. I'd take 12 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds every night from him if I could.