There's nothing quite like watching Anthony Tolliver hit a 3 during Katy Perry's "Eye of the Tiger" at a redneck bar. Trust me on this.

The song did not fit a bumbling 4th quarter or the team as a whole, but it did seem fitting to smile at a team that officially left behind the Era of Despair that left fans distraught the past few seasons.

In a week where the Bobcats-Hornets were buyers (!) at the trade deadline, solidified their playoff hopes with a 4-0 record and beat the pizza all 4 times, the oddest part came while I drank alone at a Greensboro bar. No one played music through the first three quarters, so I heard the smattering of conversations and billiards shots while Charlotte looked the most dominant they had been all year, against a decent New Orleans Pelicans squad.

Then, the 4th quarter began and for some reason a patron played "Eye of the Tiger." While the Pelicans made a nice run and nearly beat the Bobcats-Hornets, Charlotte won on the strength of Al Jefferson's prolific night - 33 pts/10 reb on 30 shots.

That kind of night had become commonplace for the first week after the all-star break. Jefferson dominated a home-and-home/back-to-back against the Detroit Pistons earlier in the week with 32 and 29 points, respectively.

"[Jefferson]'s a bad matchup for the entire league right now," interim Pistons coach John Loyer said. "We knew exactly what we was going to do - they ran the same plays they always run - but there's not much you can do to stop him."

Having scored 30 or more in 7 of the last 12 games, Loyer echoed the sentiments of most teams that have had to face Jefferson in the past few weeks. Since Kemba Walker's ankle injury, he has been a monstrous offensive force.

That said, games against New Orleans and Memphis provided the first glimpse at truly defensive centers that Charlotte has seen in awhile. He handled the Anthony Davis, Greg Steimsma and Alexis Ajinca combinations the Pelicans threw at him, but the double teams took him out of the late-game collapse that nearly cost the Bobcats-Hornets the game.

So, then, what will happen against the league's elite teams? Memphis used a combination of Jefferson's tired legs and the NBA's 2013 Defensive Player of the Year to deaden Jefferson's effect on the game. The Grizzlies limited Jefferson's shots and effectiveness, leaving him 2-13 (his lowest shot output since a loss to the Suns before the break) with only 6 points.

Without Jefferson's normal output, Kemba Walker had the best game since his return from injury weeks ago. His 31 points kept the offense afloat, though the team sputtered in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The stage set, the team had a choice in the 4th: play big or lose a heartbreaker like have so often.

The first few weeks of the season showed a problematic pattern: Charlotte could put their numbers up in the first three quarters before fading in the 4th. They did not look like a playoff team and questions mounted as to Jefferson's ability to play with another bad team.

Those questions have faded away as Charlotte plays their best ball of the season. Walker and Jefferson anchor the offense, while Michael Kidd-Gilchrist leads a team defense that currently sits top-5 in points allowed on defense. Both of those showed in Saturday's Memphis game: the defense held the Grizzlies to under 90 points while the offense hit their free throws late to seal a victory.

Now, the team looks to integrate two new bench players - Charlotte acquired backup guards Luke Ridnour and Gary Neal for Ramon Sessions and seldom-used Jeff Adrien. Neal's reputation as a three-point specialist will be welcomed on a team that attempts and hits very few of them. Ridnour will play the Sessions backup role and while Sessions played some minutes with Walker, Sessions and Ridnour look startlingly similar on paper.
The only real problem with losing Sessions comes with his propensity for getting to the free-throw line in limited minutes. Ridnour will not do that, but he will run the second unit admirably. Neal allows Kemba a running mate that can hit threes on fast breaks though Neal has limited ball-handling capabilities.

The Bobcats-Hornets bought at the trade deadline. And they went 4-0 in a week. They have a long break to acclimate two new players to a good defense and a sputtering offense. Jefferson is rolling at the highest level of his career. The Bobcats climbed to 6th in the playoff chase, earning their spot to play Toronto in the playoffs if they hold all positions over the next few weeks.

The schedule gets very favorable for Charlotte, but first, they will see a real test over the next four games. They get the Spurs (albeit without Tony Parker), the Thunder, the Heat and the Pacers next. Then, they get a series of losing-record teams (minus another game at Memphis) almost stretching to the playoffs. If they win their fifth in a row at San Antonio, they will likely get a little buzz before they have to play complete playoff teams.
The buzz, if it comes, will be well deserved. They may not have "Eye of the Tiger" level status quite yet, but a 4-0 week and some added weapons definitely solidifies them as a team with a real shot at not only the playoffs, but actual respectability. They are playing their best ball after the All-Star break in a position where that matters. They have a good stretch coming and if they stay healthy, that stretch could even last until the second-round of the playoffs.

The Era of Despair gone, the Bobcats-Hornets have reason to believe that mediocrity no longer looks otherworldly.

Now, they begin to storm the castles of respectability.

Charlotte arrived at the all-star break with their mission still intact: remain in the hunt for the playoffs. Just the fact that that mission remained a possibility made this half-season a remarkable success.

Since the destruction of the Gerald Wallace-Tyson Chandler era, Charlotte spent several seasons at the bottom of the league including recording the worst season (in winning percentage) in the history of the NBA. Bobcats-Hornets fans know that. But it bears repeating, since basketball fans and experts cannot deny that a largesse of losses can improve teams just as much as free agency and a playoff berth with the upcoming draft.

The Virginia Slims approach to this season - "You've come a long way, Bobcats" - assumes the fans are happy with a losing record so long as the team no longer plays the worst basketball in recorded history. Fan reactions on message boards and on websites have a generally positive vibe. Most comments hold specific weak points - like the power-forward position - accountable instead of institutional weakness.

This shift should have been the point of the Michael Jordan regime all along. Jordan's control of the team should have ushered in an era where decent free agents and middle-round draft picks made for a consistently watchable team. Charlotte may not have been championship material by now, but certainly we would not be cheering mediocrity as though it were a step in the right direction.

That said, history's concreteness spurns the fans. They cannot change the worthlessness of the past three or so seasons, and they have every right to look toward a brighter future.

The Bobcats-Hornets 23-30 record places them 8th in the Eastern Conference - a half-game ahead of Detroit for a playoff berth. While 23-30 seems feeble, the team played without one of its two best offensive players for long stretches of the season. When fully intact, the team showed a solid defense and a below average offense meshing to challenge most good teams and beat most bad teams. Every team has inexplicable losses, and the Bobcats-Hornets have their fair share.

After a phenomenal game against the Mavericks on Tuesday, they put up an awful performance against the Nets on Wednesday. Having the most back-to-backs in the league and playing their worst ball on the second night of those back-to-backs has hindered the team greatly. Charlotte's record on those second nights stands at a horrid 3-12 with an average of 87 points per game. The schedule of those games has been mercifully mixed, but getting the Pacers, Bulls, Heat, Suns and Nets on those nights may as well lead to scheduled losses.

One particularly brutal stretch of games really cemented Charlotte's fate for the first half. After Christmas, the team dropped eight of nine games during a long road trip when the team stood on the cusp of relative respectability. They started the trip with a record of 14-15 only to drop to 15-23. Since then, they have played .500 ball even through the loss of Kemba Walker to injury for a few games.

Without that stretch, this team looked like a contender to make the playoffs and draw a seed favorable to them winning in a series. That's still very possible with a favorable second-half schedule coming their way.

The driving force behind watching this team, despite the scheduling foibles, injuries and that awful post-holiday run, lies in the strength of the players and coaching staff. Al Jefferson's run from January until now has been nothing short of extraordinary. Walker's improvements continued despite early season struggles and an ankle injury. While other young players have struggled with playing time and/or shot selection, Walker and Jefferson have carried the load. They provide a bright spot in a lulling offense. Jefferson leads the team in points per game, rebounds and blocks (20/10/1.2 respectively), and Walker leads in assists and steals. While his assist numbers don't really inspire fans too much, he scores 18 a game as a compliment and remains one of only two players that can consistently create his own shot.

Gerald Henderson's ongoing obsession with fadeaway baseline jumpers hinders my ability to compliment him, but he's scoring 15 a game and has been instrumental in early game possessions when the offense lacks energy. Anthony Tolliver leads the team in 3pt% and 3ptFGs, which speaks both to his role on the team and the team's need for a perimeter scorer. Josh McRoberts has played well in stretches and has developed a game that compliments Walker and Jefferson nicely when they play together. He shoots threes sometimes, but the effects of those threes have been linked to heart defects.

While Ramon Sessions struggled in Walker's absence, he continues to play the backup scoring guard role well. Head coach Steve Clifford uses both guards in a smaller lineup that looks and sounds delightful, but the numbers may say differently. When that Walker-Sessions happens, however, the eye test shows an offense more willing to attack the basket with an abundance of quickness.

That kind of attack has been lacking all season for the Bobcats-Hornets for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, the lack of shooters that can create their own shots consistently keeps defenders from switching or doubling. The aforementioned lack of long-range shooters, allows those same defenses to collapse the lane whenever a player like Walker, Sessions or, to a lesser extent, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist attacks the lane.

While Jefferson commands double-teams from many squads, he cannot command them on every possession and the Bobcats know that. Coach Clifford loves ball rotation. In press conferences, he often mentions ball reversal as a means to an end. That end, of course, being a refusal of the Era of Despair when isolated players often jacked shots with little time left in a possession so often that it became the norm.

Clifford bounces around lineups a lot, though, trying to find the right mixes of shooting and attacking while keeping roles intact. He has repeatedly stranded Biyombo at the end of the bench despite his size and shot blocking ability, eschewing those skills for extra offense.

The need for offense leaves Kidd-Gilchrist's future in mild doubt. He's found himself with less minutes since returning from injury, though not completely castigated from the starting lineup. The team loves Kidd-Gilchrist, but the coaching staff might see a future less bright - something of a bother, even, seeing as how the organization picked him second over Bradley Beal (a need position) and all-star Damian Lillard (though he plays Walker's position).

Halfway through the season, the players expect a rotation that makes sense and a team poised to make a move. Jefferson said exactly that after the Mavericks win last week. The tinkering, though may yet serve some purpose.

Fans often believe they know what a team has before the season, but not too many predicted an eight-seed this far into the season*. Charlotte, despite their many foibles, has a real chance to discover their place in the league for a couple of years to come. No longer does the "are we a punching bag?" question hold merit. I've harped on the team's mediocrity as a plus before, and I'll do it more: This kinda rules.

The Bobcats-Hornets don't win the big ones all the time. They cannot win back-to-backs. They likely won't make a huge splash this year. The nagging and fairly wonderful sentiment remains, though.

You've come a long way, Bobcats.

*-Someone over at Rufus on Fire did, but I cannot remember which writer. For the record, I thought we'd be 10th in the East, which is, ugh, still a possibility.

Kemba Walker's confident stride onto the court in Oakland fooled me. He looked like he'd been playing as Charlotte's MVP for weeks, not Al Jefferson. As a fan, it heartened me to see his cockiness against one of the best guards in the NBA and one of the league's best offensive teams.

Once the game started, however, fan or no, Charlotte's real MVP destroyed the Golden State Warriors. Tallying another 30-point game and adding 13 rebounds, Jefferson evenly distributed punishment to a bevy of defenders. Andrew Bogut played too slow, Jermaine O'Neal bought the jabs and fakes and no one else the Warriors trotted out had to size or strength to handle him.

Earlier in the season, the Bobcats-Hornets may have tried to create their own shots instead feeding Jefferson again and again, but the recent injury to Walker forced Charlotte's hand.

During Jefferson's incredible run without Walker, the lineup change kept the best passer and shot creating guard out. Ramon Sessions, a more than capable backup, does not have the array of moves or the speed to create his own shot as prolifically as Walker, so Jefferson had to assume a more prominent role for the health of an already underwhelming offense. The results: Jefferson's numbers looked incredible minus a poor team performance in Phoenix last week.

In total, Jefferson went 12-22 from the field against Golden State for his 30 pts. Compare that to the numbers against the Walker-less games:

9-18 (22 pts) vs Toronto
12-23 (24 pts) vs Los Angeles (Clippers)
11-19 (33 pts) vs New York
15-26 (32 pts) vs Chicago
13-24 (35 pts) vs Denver
18-32 (40 pts) vs Los Angeles (Lakers)
4-15 (11 pts) vs Phoenix

Since Walker's return:
12-22 (30 pts) vs Golden State
12-21 (26 pts) vs San Antonio

Not much difference and minus the Phoenix outlier, all at or above 50 percent shooting. Though the sample size is extremely small, Charlotte looked to an established pattern in the past three weeks. They forced defenses to deal with their best player 20-30 times a game and lightened the load on the rest of the Charlotte offense.

When teams like Golden State and the Lakers figured out they did not have the players to compete with Jefferson, they double teamed him and hoped another player would beat them. Neither team had a real chance to double Jefferson with their personnel and coaching styles, so the Bobcats-Hornets advantage worked perfectly.

The San Antonio Spurs, on the other hand, had two strategies to keep Jefferson from tormenting them. Strategy No. 1, early in the game they played him straight up with Tim Duncan. That strategy failed miserably as Jefferson went 6-8 with 12 points in the first quarter. Strategy No. 2, sending in Boris Diaw to guard him from the front and force awkward passes toward the basket. This strategy proved more difficult for both offense and defense, but provided San Antonio one large advantage. Duncan's advanced age may not allow him to play 1-on-1 against a superior big man, but he still plays near-perfect help defense when protecting the basket. Jefferson's fourth quarter numbers differed dramatically after the adjustment, as he went 3-4 and two of those shots came after offensive rebounds/fast breaks.

San Antonio's Jefferson strategy relied on a heavy rotation of double teams and weakside help from a legendary defender, but the Bobcats-Hornets won't face that so much in the coming games. The Spurs have the option of switching strategies with a fantastic bench and Duncan. The Mavericks, Brooklyn, and a home-andhome split vs Detroit shapes up nicely for Jefferson to continue his dominant run.

Walker's return did not quell Jefferson's dominance, but his presence helped the 4th quarter offense immensely in the 104-100 loss. Without him, San Antonio could have pressured any ballhandler they wished - something they do often against teams they know make a lot of mistakes.

Charlotte eschewed a normal Sessions-Walker lineup late in the second half to focus on big men and three-point shooting. An Anthony Tolliver-Josh McRoberts-Al Jefferson squad with Walker and Henderson handling the ball paid off offensively as the Bobcats hung with one of the best teams in the NBA.

The defense, however, failed them time and again in pick-and-rolls and transition, leading to a career night for Patty Mills (32 pts, 6 Reb). That must improve against Dallas with Monta Ellis and Dirk Nowitzki awaiting them.
Walker must develop a relationship with Jefferson this season on pick-and-rolls. Jefferson's biggest weakness in his career has been defense, and Walker plays more pesky 1-on-1 defense than team defense, so both must overlook each other's flaws when playing teams that have multiple capable players in offensive sets. When the pick-and-roll worked as well as it did for the Spurs early, slip screens and step back jumpers - like Mills continually performed - become more readily available. If each game provided a narrative, this loss' would be a story of developmental mistakes. Great offensive execution can only carry a team so far if they falter against quick guards. Walker's return can help, but if he and Jefferson cannot perform well together on defense, their offense will not matter.

All that said, the Bobcats-Hornets' latest stretch against the Western Conference taught fans much about the team. Kemba Walker returned. The team proved competitive on the road and at home against solid squads. They went 3-2 in a series of games that could have defined them as despairingly bad once again. They could go 4-2 in that stretch with a win against Dallas.

Above all else, they defined Al Jefferson in Charlotte. This team now knows who its offensive leader has to be, and who they can rely on when opponent's make him their primary responsibility.

Jefferson may not be an All-Star or a candidate to give chase to LeBron or Kevin Durant. But his dominance this weekend could push Charlotte into the playoffs - they are currently 8th, the last playoff position in the East. If that happens, he'll be the MVP of an unlikely playoff team.

Leadership has its advantages.

The Hornets-Bobcats, weary from a week of West Coast games, lost to the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night. The game fell on the second night of a back-to-back in the middle of a West Coast swing. They played yet another game without their starting point guard and co-offensive team leader.

I could go on. Yet, as the myriad of excuses piled up for Charlotte's loss, one thing remained perfectly clear.
They persevered.

In a tough stretch, they had to have two wins over struggling teams without a stalwart player and they got them with distinctly different styles.

Wednesday's game against the Denver Nuggets could have doubled as a track event. The Nuggets thrive in fast-paced games and tend to score a ton against less-than-elite defenses. Charlotte, led by the latest in a series of Al Jefferson's unbelievable efforts, held Denver's running attack in check (a theme of sorts for Denver teams this week) while putting up a triple-digit scoring effort.

The win marked the first time in over a month that the team beat a .500 or better opponent on the road since they beat the Raptors in Toronto on Jan. 20 (Denver has since dropped to a game below .500, but we're looking for bright spots here).

Jefferson shined with a gaudy 35-11 stat line. Despite defensive deficiencies at the key - leading to a massive 33-point night for a usually subdued Randy Foye - the team held a very good offense to under 100 points. Injuries to starting guard Ty Lawson made a big difference, but remember that the teams had a level playing field in that regard.

The focus, though, should remain on Jefferson. He more than doubled the points output on any other player while shooting over 50 percent from the floor. To out this in perspective, Gerald Henderson scored 16 points while shooting 6-17. Jefferson's effectiveness is picking up other player's struggles and consistently outshining the other teams' double-teams and the waves of players sent at him.

His recent trail of destruction has left the announcers, the fans and the league in awe. To do it without a primary ballhandler places his recent run just under the much-publicized run of Kevin Durant.

While Durant has an arsenal of perimeter moves and one of the NBA's finest jumpers, Jefferson must rely on back-to-the-basket maneuvering and, for now, backup guards getting him the ball. Jefferson's scoring, while less flashy, is no less impressive against the kinds of defenders he faces on a night-to-night basis.
When he followed up his 35/11 performance with 40/18 against the Los Angeles Lakers, the minimal talk around the Bobcats-Hornets shifted from a nice run to Al Jefferson: All-Star. He abused Pau Gasol and the collection of stiffs the Lakers ran at him when Gasol failed. Jefferson tied his career high with 40, put up his 11th straight 20-point game and did it all shooting 18-32.

Jefferson played as the only option on the bulk of Charlotte's possessions and still shot well over 50 percent. That speaks both to his singular ability to get buckets and the Lakers inability to play anything resembling basketball with their depleted roster.

With the two wins, the Bobcats-Hornets moved into 8th in the East, which would guarantee them the right to lose 4 straight debilitating games to the Miami Heat. That said, they would lose those games in the playoffs. For a team that played exactly five meaningful games all of last season, these wins and this run without Walker marks a truly remarkable stretch.

That Charlotte lost to a good team the following night did little harm to their already impressive week. The team earned their listlessness. Jefferson scored only 10, thus ending his streak, but 35-40 points does not happen so often.

Big Al's week did not end up in an All-Star nod, but he proved to be part of the discussion. Charlotte's week did not end undefeated, but they weaseled their way into the playoff picture. All this and they improved to 4-3 without Kemba Walker on the floor. Walker's return can't come soon enough with a particularly tough set of games coming up, but the Bobcats-Hornets already know what they have to do.

With no all-stars, missing starters and the odds stacked against them, they have to persevere.