Bobcats and Henderson steal win over the Sixers, 88-83

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that may have been the best game the Bobcats have played in two years.

In a season where many things have gone wrong and many losses were endured, you would expect the Bobcats to fold and just look forward to the offseason. That didn't happen tonight.

The first quarter was not a good one for the Bobcats. They were down 27-19 at the end of it, and the only player that did anything was Kemba Walker. Nobody played defense and it looked like it was gonna be another blowout loss.

The second quarter came around and everything changed. I don't know if it was Dunlap or Walker's play, but all of a sudden everybody else stepped up. The Cats even out rebounded their the 76ers.

Josh McRoberts had a phenomenal double-double with 12 points and 16 rebounds. His passing was great too -- he set up teammates more than once. What was really impressive, though, was his defense. McRoberts can at times be lazy and slow on defense. Tonight, he closed out on every shot he could get to.

This greatly affected the 76ers, who take a huge amount of midrange jumpers (over 1000 shots from 15-19 feet this season, and 700+ from 20-24 feet). A lot of those attempts come from Jrue Holiday. Well, Holiday went 2-24 tonight. A lot of that had to with the Bobcats' defense.

Kemba Walker had a fantastic game, notching a double-double with 17 points on 6-14 shooting and dropping 10 times. Walker's passing was amazing. I always knew he had the ability to pass well, and it was nice to see it on display. Seeing Bobcats fight to get to spots for Walker to get them the ball and Walker getting the ball right where they wanted it was just too much fun. Walker was also a large part of Holiday's horrible shooting night. He was all over the 76ers -- he even had 5 steals.

Gerald Henderson was again incredibly efficient going 9-14 from the field and scoring 22 points. Hendo made great decisions tonight, whether creating for himself or teammates or was moving off the ball and making the Bobcats' passers' job easier. He also had a game-winning steal and dunk that put the Bobcats up by three with 33 seconds to go.

These three players were all fantastic and clearly, that rubbed off on the rest of the team. This season has had a lot of growing pains but I can confidently say that this has been the best game I've watched them play so far.

The Bobcats got hit in the mouth, came back, and won the game. They made adjustments when necessary and outplayed their opponent.

As the season gets ever closer to an end, this should be a game that fans look at and say, "I think we're gonna be okay in a year or two".