<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">This was closer to normal. This was more the way Charlotte Bobcats Arena will feel this season -- a better litmus test than that star-spangled, celebrity-studded opening night Saturday. This was Charlotte against Utah on a Monday night. It was one of those games that a lot of casual fans looked at on the schedule and said, "Hmm... no thanks." Nevertheless, there were 14,872 pretty jacked-up fans at the arena to watch the Bobcats lose to Utah 95-91 in overtime Monday. On a school night, matched against Indianapolis and New England playing on TV in the most attractive Monday Night Football matchup of the season, that wasn't bad. And the Bobcats weren't bad, either. Far from it. They have played in four games this season, clawed tooth and nail in all of them, gone to overtime in three and won two. Charlotte didn't win Monday because Utah too often played volleyball against the backboard, disgusting coach Bernie Bickerstaff, who practically questioned his team's manhood in his postgame news conference. "They beat us where the men play," Bickerstaff kept saying. The Bobcats did come back from a nine-point deficit to start the fourth quarter against the Jazz -- their energy level helped considerably by rookies Raymond Felton and Sean May -- and missed the final shot in regulation to win. Charlotte has holes, but at least they aren't crater-sized anymore. Utah is one of those under-the-radar teams in the Western Conference. Many of us last paid attention to the Jazz when it had Karl Malone and John Stockton. Now the team has former Duke big man Carlos Boozer (who was in street clothes with a hamstring injury), and a lot of good foreign players -- the Jazz started players from Croatia, Russia and Turkey. Utah is a bottom-tier playoff team in the West, maybe.</div> Source
