This was the sort of game that suspends reality for a night.
Yes, they've used up 26 of 41 home games. Yes, they're seven games below .500. Yes, they're entering a brutal five-game road trip stretching all over the Western Conference.
But is there any question, following this 98-76 thumping of the Phoenix Suns, that the Charlotte Bobcats are one of the eight best teams in the Eastern Conference?
The two ex-Suns defined this night. Boris Diaw finished with 26 points, 11 rebounds and four assists. Raja Bell had nine points, eight assists and five rebounds and snuffed out ex-Bobcat Jason Richardson (eight points on 3-of-9 shooting).
But instead of gloating over bouncing around their former team, those two spoke of possibilities over the remaining 39 games.
I'm happy to beat the Suns, but I'm more happy we're winning games,
Bell said of the recent 5-1 record.
So are playoffs viable?
It's got to be,
Bell said. And if we don't make it, we've at least got to shoot for it, as long as it's mathematically possible.
While Diaw said it was kind of weird
facing so many ex-teammates, the primary focus was on the big picture.
We're really developing a winning mentality,
Diaw said. We've beaten good teams – Boston, Detroit, now the Suns.
They're 11-9 since Diaw and Bell arrived and it's hard to recognize the team that showed up in Wilmington for training camp.
They're thriving on exceptional defense – the Suns shot 36 percent and committed 24 turnovers.
Forward Gerald Wallace (28 points, eight rebounds, five assists) seemed to blow by every Sun for a layup through three quarters. It was a 22-point lead at halftime and reached 34 with 8 1/2 minutes left.
I don't think we can play better,
said Bobcats coach Larry Brown, not typically someone easy to please. I don't think there's even a chance, without this trade, that this would have happened.
Brown said he was so worried about the group that originally showed up for training camp that he feared breaking the Philadelphia 76ers' record for fewest wins ever (nine in the '72-73 season).
I didn't have a clue how to coach that team in training camp. Nothing we had tried in the past worked,
Brown said.
Maybe I was asking them to do things they couldn't do. We're 1,000 percent better now.
