Bobcats Fighting Without Wallace
When Gerald Wallace went down he didn't take the Charlotte Bobcats spirit with him. Rather, his team has tried to band together in his absence. Now the Bobcats, like Wallace, aren't going down without a fight.
"That's just the type of team we are," Raymond Felton said. "We're just trying to play hard and play teams the best way we can to try get wins. We're still trying to win. We've still got NBA players on this team. We miss Gerald, there's no question. We miss Gerald tremendously but we've got to play without him. We know that."
The Bobcats are 1-4 since Wallace suffered a Grade 3 concussion on February 22. He took an accidental elbow to face from the Sacramento Kings Mikki Moore and was carried off the court on a stretcher.
"The last thing I heard from our trainer was that he's not having the same headache frequency," head coach Sam Vincent said. "He's feeling better … Everything is progressing along very well."
Without their leading scorer on the court, the Bobcats are turning to their bench for help. Jason Richardson said role players need to bring energy. His coach agreed.
"It makes our team different when he's out," Vincent said. "We give up a lot of points. We give up defense. We give up leadership. We have to ask all the guys to give a little bit more to make up for him when he's out. And I think for the most part the guys have tried to do that."
Felton is already seeing one of the youngest Bobcats doing just that. Rookie Jared Dudley has seen major minutes in Wallace's absence.
"Gerald's the type of guy who tries to do everything," Felton said. "I think Jared Dudley's a guy who tries out there to do everything like Gerald does. He tries to do some offense, plays great defense, rebounds, all those things. I can see a little bit of Gerald inside of Jared."
Even though Wallace's tough play has landed him on the sidelines, his coach and teammates don't want him to lose his intensity.
"We don't want Gerald to change who he is," Vincent said. "He's a guy that passionately loves to play basketball and he plays hard. We just want him to be aware that sometimes when you don't have to go flying through the air, maybe you don't. And I don't know if that's something you can do or not. But if he can try to play with some awareness on the floor, we want to keep the risk of him getting injured again down."
Richardson doesn't think it would be easy to slow Wallace down.
"The only way Gerald knows how to play is hard. Hard and fast," he said. "You don't want to see him down like that but that's the way he plays the game. I love the passion he has for the game and it's just unfortunate that he got injuries because he plays so hard."
Reiterated Richardson: "That's the only way he knows how to play."
About the Author: JESSICA CAMERATO
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Jessica Camerato is a member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association and has covered the NBA for HOOPSWORLD for two years, powering HOOPSWORLD.COM and HOOPSWORLD Magazine.
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