Even before the opening tip of last night’s 99-86 loss to the Nets at the Meadowlands, Charlotte rookie sensation Emeka Okafor knew he was in for a long night against Alonzo Mourning.
“When I say he’s strong, it’s an understatement,” Okafor said of the former Hornet big man. “I knew I was in trouble when we greet each other at the beginning and kinda pound hands. He pounded me, and I was like ‘Oh, damn.’
“That’s a big, strong dude right there.”
The pounding didn’t stop there, not by a long shot. But even against a menacing defender like Mourning, Okafor rose to the challenge and produced his most impressive game of the season.
He scored a career-high 26 points, mostly while getting tenderized by Mourning under the hoop, pulled down 12 rebounds, blocked three shots and registered his fifth straight double-double of the year.
Charlotte coach Bernie Bickerstaff thought long and hard before declaring it was “pretty damn close” to being Okafor’s best game.
“I see signs of myself in him,” Mourning said. “It’s so ironic, he’s starting in the same city as I started my career.”
Okafor, the former UConn superstar whose name translates to “God has done well” in Nigerian, played 45 minutes, and he’ll be able to count the welts on his ribs for days after going toe-to-toe with Mourning for the majority of those minutes.
He scored 18 points in the first half and hit his first five shots against the platoon defense supplied by Mourning, then Brian Scalabrine and finally Nenad Krstic. But he saved his two best plays of the night for Mourning in the fourth quarter.
Okafor’s final two baskets came off offensive rebounds he snatched high over Mourning in the paint. The first of those two plays produced his 24th point of the night, but got the Bobcats only to within 14 points of the Nets. His previous high was a 22-point output last week against Detroit.
“I thought he played well,” Bickerstaff said. “He asserted himself. He shot the ball. He was rebounding. He had to do a lot of things, and played a lot of minutes tonight. But he’s making progress.”
