Envy

I commented on this in our forums yesterday, but I typed a sentence that from the beginning of time through about 2 weeks ago has likely never been typed before. Here goes:

I am envious of the Memphis Grizzlies and their organization

There, I said it. It’s out of my system. The Grizzlies have managed to take out one of the two premiere franchises of the last 15 years… And they did it with their best player (Rudy Gay) out of the playoffs with an injury. They were younger, faster and quite a bit more physical than the San Antonio Spurs for the majority of the series. Their win was not a fluke.

They have young talent with Mayo, Conley, Gay, Gasol and defensive stopper Tony Allen ( hmmm, does he remind you of anyone in particular) . They are not in contract Hell, they play with energy and with the return of their best player next season they are certainly a team on the way up.

As a Bobcats fan, it would be an amazing experience to be in the position that the Grizzlies are in right now. But for now, I’ll just have to settle for being envious.

Any other envious people here?

While I was watching the playoffs this weekend, I found it fascinating how many former Charlotte Bobcats that there were playing a significant role in this year’s playoffs. Since our squad isn’t going to play another relevant game until November-ish, I thought that it would be fun to follow along with some of our former Bobcats brethren in their journey through the playoffs.

First up G-G-G-G-Gerald Wallace ( that brought back memories didn’t it ). In the last few weeks of the regular season Gerald Wallace had been absolutely killing it, even managing a 40 point outburst against the OKC Thunder. Unfortunately for Crash, those good times didn’t carry over into Saturday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks. In that game Crash played 38 minutes but only produced 8 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals. On the bad side of the ledger he had 3 turnovers and had his shot blocked 4 times.

The culprit of a few of those blocks was another former Cat, Tyson Chandler. I’m sure that most of you remember that there are two things that Tyson does well and that’s rebounding and playing defense…. When he isn’t in a walking boot. Saturday versus the Blazers he had a typical Chandleresque stat line. 4 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots.

The Charlotte Bobcats lost an ugly game to the Cleveland Cavaliers last night. I will neither confirm nor deny that I turned off this atrocity 8 minutes into the first quarter to get in some quality time with Crysis 2…  With that being said, I present to you recaps from around the web.

• Charlotte Observer – Bobcats fall into familiar losing mode
• RobertoGato – Bobcats puke on their shoes in Cleveland
• Rufus on Fire – Bobcats lose to Cavs 99-89, because they stunk
• Ohio.com – Cavs end three game skid, win over Bobcats

Next up, The Orlando Magic tonight.  This should be friggin beautiful.

With last night’s loss to the Wizards we’re down by 2 games with 6 games remaining and we don’t hold the tiebreaker. I think Luther Vandross said it best. It’s over now.

So, Just when we all give up hope and start concerning ourselves with potential lottery picks more than a possible playoff berth, the Bobcats do the unthinkable and climb back into the race for the final spot. Last night’s victory against the Knicks in conjunction with Friday’s inexplicable short-handed win against the Celtics and a loss by the Indiana Pacers ( thank you Detroit ) have positioned the Cats 1 game out of the 8th spot with 10 games left to play. The Pacers hold the tiebreaker, but still this is more than we could have possibly hoped for considering the position we were in just a week ago.

Looking at last night’s game, the Knicks offered no defensive resistance. The Bobcats put up 64 points in the first half and followed that up with another 50 in the second half. The Bobcats are not an offensive juggernaut by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, so to give up 114 points last night shows that they have some severe defensive problems with their squad. The Knicks allowed the Bobcats to have 8 players reach double figure scoring. Boris Diaw (wait… what???) led the Bobcats in scoring and rebounding with 20 points and 8 rebounds. If we can get Boris to have more than one of these performances per month then we may be on to something.