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Okafor leads Bobcats to first NBA win
With 12 points and 14 rebounds,
Nigerian-born Emeka Okafor at the weekend led his modest side past Orlando
Magic as the NBA season gathers steam.
As the final seconds ticked off on the
expansion Charlotte Bobcats' first victory, guard Jason Hart handed the ball to
team owner Bob Johnson.
The man who brought the NBA back to
Charlotte after a two-year absence seemed overwhelmed. The 111-100 victory over
the Orlando Magic on Saturday night was historic. The gesture from his players
was downright special
``That showed a lot of class,'' said
Johnson, who appeared to have tears in his eyes. ``They played their heart out,
and if they continue to play like that every game, I think we're going to win a
lot.''
The Bobcats wrestled for rebounds,
scrambled after loose balls and outhustled the Magic en route to the win.
Primoz Brezec, quickly emerging as
Charlotte's star player, had 20 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Bobcats.
Gerald Wallace, who landed face first on a slide off the court, added 18 points
and 10 rebounds.
Steve Smith had 14 points, and Jason Hart
had 14 points and 11 assists.
Cuttino Mobley led the Magic with 23
points. Grant Hill, playing in his first back-to-back games since Dec. 15-16,
2002, scored 16 for the Magic. Hedo Turkoglu also had 16.
Hill said the Magic will forever carry the
burden of being the first team to lose to the Bobcats. ``To this day, I know
who Orlando's first win was - the Detroit Pistons,'' Hill said. ``We
don't want to be their first win. It goes down in history.'' The over-hyped
first meeting between the first two picks in the NBA draft never materialised.
Brezec made sure of that by shutting down
rookie Dwight Howard, who Orlando chose over Charlotte's Emeka Okafor with the
No. 1 selection.
Howard, in foul trouble most of the game,
didn't score until late in the fourth quarter. He played just 23 minutes and
finished with five points and 12 rebounds - but seven came when Charlotte
was leading by double digits.
``I just got a little overanxious,'' said
Howard, who insisted it had nothing to do with facing Okafor. ``I played him
just like everybody else.''
But Okafor was better, with 12 points and
14 rebounds. He still showed growing pains, though. Turkoglu had a thunderous
dunk on him in the first half, he picked up a few careless fouls, and his shot
selection was suspect at times on 5-of-14 shooting. Afterward, he downplayed
the encounter with Howard while praising his opponent. ``Man, it was the
Bobcats versus the Magic, that's all,'' Okafor said. ``He really impressed me.
He's going to be an excellent player. He's really a lot stronger than I
thought.''
The Bobcats built a 22-point lead in the
third quarter then sat back and let Smith, Charlotte's lone veteran, preach
patience as they nursed home the lead through the fourth quarter. It was a
turnaround from the opener, when they were tied with Washington late before
crumbling as the Wizards pulled away.
``All I can say is those young men deserve
it, they play hard and they never surrendered,'' Charlotte coach Bernie
Bickerstaff said. ``But we still do some things that can cause cardiac
arrest.''
Steve Francis, who twice made the
game-winning basket in Orlando's first two games, was held to nine points on
4-of-12 shooting.
When he fouled out with just under four
minutes to play, walking directly off the court and through the tunnel after
picking up the foul in the corner, the Charlotte crowd showed it still knows
how to jeer by taunting Francis the entire way.
The pace reached a frenzied height in the
third quarter when the Bobcats pulled away. Francis took a hard tumble off the
scorer's table and into the first row of seats on one possession, and Wallace
later went flying off the court when he was fouled by Hill under the basket.
Both players took their time getting up,
but it was Wallace's acrobatics that got the crowd excited. The Bobcats rode
the fan enthusiasm to a 70-48 lead, and enticed the crowd by waving their arms
to get the fans on their feet. ``We definitely overlooked this team,'' Francis
said. ``When you overlook teams, these are the results.''
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