We got us a real basketball team!

The Bobcats paid their dues hanging around game after game only to lose on the road every single time in the waning minutes. Now it appears they have learned how to win them. This doesn’t mean we’re going to become a team with a winning road record, but it does mean that a road trip doesn’t mean a string of auto-losses. I’ve been dreading the end of this month when we take our big Western Conference road trip because it was shaping up to be the 10 days where the Cats crashed and burned. I felt like we’d be spending the month of February trying to claw back into contention. But the way the Bobcats have played their past 3 games gives me reason to hope that we might just be able to take enough games during that trek to stay solidly in contention. I can’t help but join in the chorus of redundancy. We just won both games of a back-to-back ON THE ROAD and did it against a pair of teams with better records than ours. The Bobcats quietly gained a rep for being tough to beat at Time Warner. Now, at least for the present time, the Felines will have to be taken more seriously when we come into town for a visit.

A quick personal note here, just in case he’s reading this:

Uhm, Tyson? Take your time. Don’t step back on the court a single moment before you are 100% healthy. We don’t want you reinjuring yourself again dude. Yeah, that’s the ticket. It’s a struggle getting by without you, but we’re willing to make the sacrifice where your health is concerned. In fact, my wife, eh, Morgan Fairchild, was just saying the same thing last night.

I do have one very BIG question though. Call it a survey without an official poll. How many of y’all think it’s time to believe we can rely somewhat on our bench? Conversely, how many think the recent improved presence of DIop, Murray, and Augustin is just a fortunate and very temporary turning of fortunes?

There are still some big “ifs” staring us in the face as we approach the midpoint of the season, but this has been one impressive week. We still don’t know what’s going to happen in our power forward position and we’d be fools to think we’re going to be in contention for much of anything unless we pick up a solid player there. The elephant in the room still remains what we’re going to do if Jax, Crash, or Felton get injured and can’t play for multiple games. We’re getting by just fine without Chandler, but we can’t handle an injury to our newly developed core. We’re getting some solid minutes off the bench at present, but we have no real 6th man option and the resurgence of Nazr could end at any time. In fact the longer we are without Chandler the greater the risk that Nazr is going to run out of gas.

But enough pessimism. This team has never been more competitive, confident, or powerful. Even the best teams in the league are beginning to look at Charlotte with new respect. If they weren’t wary of us before, our finish tonight in Cleveland is going to attract some attention. The good of this is that we are finally getting some recognition. The bad is, we’re quickly losing the element of surprise. The tougher teams are going to start seeing us coming and preparing/scouting instead of taking the “W” for granted. Most of the nasty teams are in the Western Conference and that will help. Now if we can just figure out a way to be competitive with the Celtics!

Well, we have one night off and then we face a Chicago team that realistically, we should be able to take down. Go get ’em Cats!