
Rookies OJ Mayo and Darrell Arthur didn't exactly impressed in their debut game as a Charlotte Bobcat, but one Bobcat played amazingly in his "debut", the debut as a starter. Larry Brown decided to put Yuta Tabuse in the starting lineup just a few hours before the opening tip in Toronto, replacing rookie DJ Augustin with him, and he did not disappoint Brown one bit; shooting 4 of 7, and having a 16 to 1 assist to turnover ratio in 20 minutes of play, Tabuse ran the offense like a Jason Kidd or Steve Nash would, finding open looks for them where ever possible, and sometimes made the impossible happen; as a result, the Bobcats recovered from a bad start in the first quarter, when they were getting a feel for the new lineup, which included newcomer OJ Mayo, and bounced back and outplayed the Raptors in the next 3 quarters.
Richardson led the way for the Bobcats with 25 points, followed by O'Neal, Okafor, and Mayo, who had 16 each, but while O'Neal and Okafor shot 8 of 10 and 7 of 10 from the field respectively, it took Mayo 20 shot attempts as he went 7 of 20 from the field and 0 of 3 from beyond the arc, he did, however, managed to do a good job on the defensive end, limiting Anthony Parker to take just 8 shots in the game and hitting only 3 of them. O'Neal and Okafor had a great game defensively, getting 4 and 3 blocks respectively.
For the Raptors, Solomon led the way off the bench with 18 points, and Jermaine O'Neal had a decent game with 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Calderon had 16 points and 6 assists, but had 6 turnovers and was in foul trouble all game thanks to Tabuse and Augustin drawing charges.
Charlotte's Bench did a decent job, Matt Carroll led the bench mob with 13 points, followed by newcomer Darrell Arthur, who had 9 points and 4 rebound, but shot just 3 of 12 from the field and had 5 turnovers.
Larry Brown said after the game that while overall he was pleased at the effort and outcome, he was still worried about the bench depth.
"Well, the guys played hard, and played good, Matt did a nice job shooting the ball, DJ ran them well, but the thing is, we are lacking a go to guy in our 2nd unit, Matt is the best offensive guy and he cant create his own shots, other then that it's fine, obviously the new guys need some time to adjust, and their shots (Mayo's 7-20 and Arthur's 3-12) would get better when they get used to our offense" said Brown






Richardson's 3 and Tabuse's tough shot helped the Bobcats pull away late in the 4th quarter
Other Highlights








Contest Results!
Most Points: Jason Richardson - 25
Most Assists: Yuta Tabuse - 16
Most Rebounds: Emeka Okafor - 12
Larry Brown PG of the Game: Yuta Tabuse with a score of 40
Check first Page for scores