Wed, Apr 7th 2010, 11:31
It wasn’t exactly a locker room full of popping corks and euphoric smiles.
The Charlotte Bobcats clinched their first-ever playoff spot Wednesday night. But the expression of the moment was relief, not ecstacy, which fit the course of a perplexing 104-103 escape from the New Orleans Hornets.
They led by 26. Then they trailed by eight. Good teams don’t let those things happen, but they also extracted themselves from what would have been a real mess when D.J. Augustin, who grew up in the Big Easy, made a huge 3-pointer with 15 seconds left.
This victory, combined with a loss by the Toronto Raptors, clinched the playoffs, since the eighth-place Raptors and ninth-place Chicago Bulls still have a game remaining. Since one has to lose, the Bobcats’ 42-36 record gets them in.
But that didn’t console them much, considering the miserable second half they played.
“We were up 25 to a team that didn’t want to play until we gave them a reason to play,” said Gerald Wallace, who sat out the first 10 minutes of the second half with severe soreness in his left shoulder.
Wallace has been nursing that injury for a week, and then he took a direct hit from the Hornets’ David West on the first play of the game. Wallace was so banged-up at halftime that the Bobcats tried to get through the last two quarters without him.
Finally, with the lead down to six, Wallace put himself back in the game. He took two charges the rest of the way, but that didn’t stop the Hornets (35-44) from taking a 97-89 edge with just under four minutes left.
Little as coach Larry Brown cares for 3-pointers, they saved this team Wednesday, with Augustin (14 points on 5-of-7 shooting) hitting three of them in the last seven minutes.
“I was just happy to be home,” said Augustin. “We never should have let it get that far, but we were strong at the end.”
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