When the season finally got started a lot of the talk surrounding the Charlotte Bobcats was not all too positive to say the least. For the most part the team is pretty young; there is not a lot of experience on it; there really isn’t a go-to player in the group.

While I understand the logic behind what most people think, I have to say that three games in I have a lot of hope for these guys still. A recent quote by head coach Paul Silas is exactly why:

“This is probably the first team I’ve had where everybody was so on the same page. You don’t have to point your finger at somebody, saying, ‘you’re not getting…”

What this tells me is that the team is doing the best thing it could do without having a marquee, go-to player on the roster. They are actually playing a team game.

It’s a crazy notion; I know. In a day and age when the game has become more and more about one guy being the offensive focal point–like LeBron James during his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers; like Dwight Howard with the Orlando Magic—the concept of playing a team oriented sport like an actual complete team has become foreign.

Of course some super stars have been forced to come to the stark realization that they alone cannot win championships. This has forced them to team up with other so-called superstars in order to create a supposed dream team of sorts, i.e. those guys from South Beach.

If the Miami heat showed us anything last year, they showed us that teamwork does matter (because they had none at the start of last season when they got off to such a slow start) and while talent can take you a long way if you can’t work together—I’m talking all five guys on the court, not just the Big Three—titles will be hard to come by.

The Bobcats’ first two regular season games have been so exciting that they’ve moved Charlotte Observer writer Scott Fowler to new heights of prose.  After our opening night 1-point win over Milwaukee, Fowler described it as “good theater” in his post-game column.  But our narrow loss to the defending Eastern Conference Champion Heat on Wednesday wasn’t just good theater for Fowler, “it was great theater.”  I can only imagine how he’s going to react to our upcoming game with Orlando.

Theatrics aside, there’s a ton to appreciate to the Bobcats 1-1 start, both with our team and with the opposition (I’m just so glad basketball is back in our lives!). Here are my takeaways, in chronological order:

Although the Bobcats came out on the short end of the stick against the Miami Heat, there really isn’t a whole lot to complain about with tonight’s effort.  The Bobcats rushed out to an early halftime lead behind fantastic play from DJ Augustin and crazy first half numbers from Boris diaw ( 14 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block at the half ). Boris finished up with a ridiculous 16 points, 16 rebounds and 8 assists. A more skeptical person might think his numbers this season have something to do with it being a contract year for him, but I’m sure it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with… yeah, nothing at all, Really.

After running out to an early 15 point lead, The Bobcats came out sloppy in the second half turning the ball over in three of their first four possessions. After that slow third quarter start, the Heat slowly chipped away at the lead until this finally happened.

Make all the Juwanna Mann jokes that you want to about Chris Bosh, but he brought it hard in the second half and with Wade missing a good chunk of the second half with a sore foot, Bosh was the predominant reason that the Miami Heat snuck out of Charlotte with a win.

The season just started and I spent all day analyzing the Milwaukee game and you saw it (or maybe you didn’t), our cats came out on top looking MIGHTY FINE. I must admit, it sounds pretty good to my ears, that we are undefeated late in December. But like the Milwaukee fans after last game, the league doesn’t really seem to like us much, so they are throwing 2 games vs the Heat and 1 vs the Magic in our next three games. Are we looking at 1-3 after four games? I’m afraid it looks that way, but I know better than to write off the Bobcats at any point.
This season we play the heat 3 times, and though I never say never, I have my doubts that we’ll sweep them and go 66-0 this season. So for the guys not as optimistic as Ziggy was in his post, our next few games, might be the toughest and most important ones of the season.
Winning against the Bucks was a blessing for our young rookies. Being on a small market team like the Cats with not much but losing records and M.J. to show for, winning is alpha and omega. Against the Bucks, we saw just how much our future star point guard wanted just that and I was extremely impressed with both him and the rest of the bobcats (though we were far from perfect). But beating the Bucks at home is not the same as taking on the Heat twice and Orlando once in 5 days, and for this stretch more than ever, our coaching staff needs to get to work. I go on and on about confidence, and its stretches like this after a great win in our opener that can take the sky high confidence of a rookie and crush it like a bug. I think it’s extremely important to teach these rookies and young players how to deal with their ego and confidence, and here I go trying to break down this next three games and how to preach to our guys.

Before I begin my first post for Bobcats Planet I just wanted to say that I am thankful for this opportunity and am looking forward to posting on the ‘Cats throughout the season. I’ve followed the team since its initial season and feel that it is finally heading in the right direction after years of poor decisions. I’ll save that rant for another time. Let’s get to tonight’s game against the red hot Miami Heat.

Paul Silas debating with a referee in the loss to Miami.

The Miami Heat won a close game last night in Orlando, in which their Captain, Dwayne Wade, suffered a back injury when fouled by Dwight Howard. It wasn’t certain if he’d play as close as an hour before game time. So what’d he do? Oh, nothing, just post his first triple double since 2006. Naturally.