The Charlotte Bobcats have found themselves in the midst of a four game losing streak, three of those losses coming during a road trip that started on January 11th against the Toronto Raptors and ending with a 100-89 loss to the Boston Celtics last night at the TD Garden.
The game sandwiched in between those was a 96-88 loss to the Indiana Pacers who were short-handed due to Paul George suffering from the flu and all-star Danny Granger sidelined until early March.
If the Bobcats hope to avenge that loss they will need to pay a lot more attention to forward David West, who recorded his first career triple-double with 14 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists against Charlotte while doing his best Granger impersonation. George Hill added 19 points and former Bobcat D.J. Augustine contributed 18 points off the bench.
Any coach in the NBA including Mike Dunlap will tell you that playing solid defense and rebounding are the two main keys to winning games in this league and his team did neither against Indiana in the previous matchup. The Bobcats allowed the Pacers to shoot almost 40% from three-point range and they were outrebounded 48-38. Charlotte gave Indiana too many second chance opportunities late in the game and were never able to close the gap consequently. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist led the Bobcats with eight rebounds while starting center, Bismack Biyombo could only muster three.
Coach Dunlap and his staff only need to look under the hood and fine tune a couple of things to get his team back in the race but will they get it done in time to keep pace with an Indiana team that is firing on all cylinders? When the smoke clears, Bobcats fans hope to be celebrating with their team in victory lane.
Comments