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.

If you drove past Guilford College's campus on Sunday, you may have seen two grown men hoisting jumpers at a shaky rim. Maybe they looked harmless and carefree, putting up 12 to 18 footers against the wind.

Maybe one of them looked particularly onerous - favoring his right knee, relying on muscle memory. Maybe he shot for the first time in two years after a massive and devastating knee surgery. Maybe his personal life recently marred his ability to go out and experience the good days. Maybe the weather did too.

Maybe he was the happiest man on Earth, watching the ball sail at the rim and bound away.

But we do not know his story. All we know is that he stood, essentially alone and shot the ball, uncontested. With no one to pass to, no team around him calling for the ball or wanting to set up plays. He shot the ball without conscience, without hesitation or fear. He performed basketball's simplest task.

He took jumpers.

I imagine that's how Carmelo Anthony felt on Friday night while he poured 62 points on the Bobcats-Hornets at MSG. The Knicks' problems melted into the void as Melo popped jumper after jumper, attacking the rim so few times that the Bobcats defensive strategy shifted into assumption - he had to start missing 18-footers at some point, right?

He did not miss. He played on an island, toiling over several defenders who must have seemed imaginary after awhile. He went 23-35 with an unbelievable shot chart consisting of 15-25 foot shots all over the court.
The crowd chanted his name on every possession, knowing that the Madison Square Garden/Knicks' franchise record of 61 points laid well within reach.

Did he hear the crowd? Did he hear his teammates cheering him on? Or was the world around him a blurred mix of meditative silence? Did he feel anything other than instinct?

After the game, Anthony tried to explain his zone by sputtering buzzwords and team speak. He could have told us anything, though. The interview could have ended with him describing the desolation of being the only man pounding the rock, turning and firing the ball toward the rim. He could have told fans that he was the sun and the fans would have believed him. He had no teammates, no coaches, no intention of anything but shooting until he went cold.

The noises he heard may have been like traffic rolling by a tiny outdoor court, or nothing at all.

No matter what he heard, a franchise record set at the behest of the Bobcats filled the sports airwaves for days after. People debated the merits of this game - He had zero assists! He is still a selfish player! The Knicks still suck! - but they missed an important point. Melo proved that the Knicks have a commodity. Next year he might be gone, but right now, they have an unbelievably talented pure scorer. Irrelevancy should not be an option for a team with a star of his caliber.

The Bobcats-Hornets do not have that right now. What they earn, they earn without the grace of shooters that can get what they want.

The closest thing they have, though, has played an unbelievable stretch despite team struggles. Al Jefferson has become the offensive weapon they wanted and so sorely needed over the past three or four years. He's healthy and hitting his jumpers while attacking with an array of post moves that his ankle would not allow early in the season. His efficiency, his intimidating skill set and his ownership of the "best offensive player on the floor" have all burgeoned as the season has progressed.

Unfortunately, this comes while Kemba Walker sits with his own ankle problems. Ramon Sessions has filled in admirably on offense, but cannot replace the two-man game that Walker and Jefferson have nor can he replace Walker's innate scoring ability. Plus Sessions plays an important role on the bench, which now relies heavily on minutes from guys unused to shot-heavy Jannero Pargo.

This speaks nothing of the pressure on Sessions defensively. DJ Augustin, a player who feared for his NBA life just a month ago, put 28 points on the Bobcats-Hornets in starting minutes. That means a bulk of his points - and his 15 in the 4th quarter - came on Sessions.

If Anthony could not be stopped in the Knicks game, that makes sense. Augustin scoring 28 for the Bulls? That sounds like pure nonsense.

That said, nonsense ruled the Bobcats past week. Augustin's performance notwithstanding, Charlotte saw Jannero Pargo hit four straight tough jumpers against New York... in a 4-11 performance. They saw 62 from Amelo. They saw the best of Al Jefferson and the worst of Josh McRoberts.

And all of it centered on losses to teams just ahead of them in the standings. The playoffs look exceedingly less possible until Walker returns and the team shakes off the anomalies of a week that got them all the wrong coverage.

Last week looked like like they had to toss their jumpers against the wind.

Look directly into the eyes of mediocrity, and you may see Josh McRoberts taking an advised three because his team has a dearth of shooters. You may be Jeff Adrien, coming in for "energy minutes" due to a dearth of talent, or Kemba Walker as a "star" due to a series of high picks in lesser drafts.

Really, we can boil mediocrity down or ignore it all we want, but it consumes every human, from conception to the grave.

The Bobcats-Hornets must understand who they are immediately, or redefine themselves entirely. An injury to their best ballhandler - their best player - might sideline their quest for respectability. Last week tells us little.

About last week: instead of celebrating a two-win week, Bobcats-Hornets fans looked forward to a matchup with a much better Miami Heat squad. Hoping to beat the Heat actually played directly into the hands of mediocre thinking, i.e. the only way the Bobcats could beat the Heat in a one-off game relied on a poor-quality effort from the Heat and a fantastic performance from Charlotte.

This kind of game already happened earlier in the season. Chris Bosh just happened to destroy all hope.
In highly entertaining games, the Bobcats beat the Magic and Knicks. In a deplorable effort, they lost to the 76ers on the second-night of a back-to-back. And in another second night of a back-to-back, they lost to the best team in the NBA.

This 2-2 week perfectly defines how the team operates. A good defense and bad offense can only drag you so far in the NBA. One must score to win too.

That said, as the week unfolded, Charlotte certainly had some extraordinary performances.

We can definitively describe Jefferson as "on a tear." Walker had been better lately until he left the Heat game with an ankle injury. Ramon Sessions dunked on Lebron James and had a pretty solid performance against the Heat once Walker left.

Accepting our understanding of how this team will operate without Walker for two weeks could go a long way toward understanding Charlotte's place within the NBA season. If they can sustain a .500 record in his absence - likely 8-10 games - then we can count on a Bobcats team in playoff contention in the Eastern Conference quagmire until March. If not? We might see a team relegated to remnants of the Era of Despair.

The NBA defines success and failure so stringently, as all sports do, that this modicum of Charlotte's success actually buries the team. Being 17-25 would be cause to hang it up and begin the long and tedious search for a new savior (whether via draft or free agency). But this year? Mediocrity reigns. Withstanding a tough injury and working toward a playoff goal still hangs heavy over this squad.

The Bobcats-Hornets have chosen mediocrity. They've chosen to fight.

The fans have a stranger choice. Do we embrace mediocrity or do we hope for better times amid the franchise remodel?

The choice cannot linger much longer. Either this team will fold under the pressure of Kemba's absence or invigorate themselves at the behest of fate.

Normally, when Al Jefferson rolls his eyes and drops his head, he's about to start working the refs. After the game on Tuesday night, he did it out of relief.

The Bobcats-Hornets beat the Knicks to end a particularly pathetic losing streak, but he did not look relieved for that. He scored 35 - the most of any Bobcats-Hornets player this season. It wasn't that either. They snapped a nice win streak for the Knicks - who were sneaking into playoff position, but Jefferson sighed contemplatively for a whole different reason.

He dropped his head and rolled his eyes after sideline reporter Stephanie Ready asked him about the return of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

"Oh, man. He's our defensive captain," Jefferson said with a quick smile.

Anthony Tolliver, highlighted in the postgame with a slow-motion embrace of Kidd-Gilchrist and said, "We're so glad to have you back**."

His smile looked a little more effusive.

For fans, Charlotte looked like a different team entirely with Kidd-Gilchrist. That starts with his position mates.
The forwards on this team played a beleaguered month plus with patchwork schemes and rotations that included Chris Douglas-Roberts. Though his name contains a hyphen too, he did not have a professional job until Kidd-Gilchrist and Jeffrey Taylor (Achilles, out for the season) went down with injuries.

During the latest 1-8 stretch that I chronicled, the Charlotte defense fell apart in nearly every game. Without a stopper at any forward position, bigger teams bullied the paint and quicker teams got to the rim or used slash-and-kick offense to create open shots.

What Kidd-Gilchrist brought back with him made an immediate impact on both of those styles. The Knicks - albeit playing an altogether listless second night of a back-to-back - could not score in the paint since Jefferson and the power forward crew could relax on protecting the rim as much. New York also lost their midrange and three-point shooting games to Kidd-Gilchrist's effort against Carmelo Anthony.

His style of defense uses a lot of recovery. Vacillating between help defense and fantastic footwork in front of his man, his dexterity rivals the best defenders in the league. Therefore, his job has been to guard the best forwards in the league. On Tuesday night, he held Anthony to 20 points on a ton of shots.

Some of that certainly had to do with tired legs, but watching Kidd-Gilchrist work against the best pure scorer in the league (by many accounts, anyway) brought life into my fandom and, obviously, into the team.

With the big men able to stay at home, the guards could gamble more too. Kidd-Gilchrist had 2 steals, Kemba Walker could use his quickness to go under screens and still recover knowing Raymond Felton could not get straight to the rim. The pick-and-roll did not work at all for the Knicks. They had zero fast break points midway through the 4th quarter.

The defense advertised earlier in the season looked crisp, the rotation back to a minimal use of Tolliver and Douglas-Roberts and the energy ran higher than it had in weeks.

Kidd-Gilchrist may not resurrect the season, but he certainly makes it much more entertaining. As the team trudges toward the completion of the first half of the season, they have their lynchpin back.

Stephanie Ready had to ask Jefferson how he felt about MKG's return even though she knew the answer already.

She had seen the game.

*- Obviously, I wrote this before the awful Philadelphia game. Ugh.

**-I can clearly read lips.

My faith shaken, my emotions stirred, I may have watched the effective end of this Bobcats season well before I thought I would.

Every team has the stretch that defines them. This year's Bobcats team entered the holiday season with a chance to show that they could hang with respectable teams. They had .500 well within their grasp and had one of the better defenses in the league. Kemba Walker had a hot streak going, and the team fought in every game; scrapping for respectability in a league that has none for them.