Well, what can I say after a performance like that. For those who know me, I’m our resident Australian Bobcats fan. So yes, that meant I woke up at 8 a.m to watch that game. If you even want to call it a game. I don’t even know where to begin to be honest, because deficiencies were everywhere.

Firstly, turnovers. Forced passes, stupid decisions, being too aggressive in the post. All these lead to turnovers. All these cost us an offensive trip. And for the Bobcats who are absolutely horrendous on offense, we need to cut down because we need every shot we can get. Main offender here was Captain Jack with 6 TOs. I understand hes trying to carry us, but he’s forcing things right now.

Offense. It’s hard enough without Crash, even harder when you have McGuire on the court. I’m not bagging him or anything, but seriously LB don’t play him 20+ minutes. Give it to TT who is able to put points on the board in a short amount of time. Plus TT is a better defender. McGuire is only there for rebounding and hustle. A better defender than UPS? No thanks.

Play Matt Carroll. Seriously LB. When you need a guy to come in and hit a 3. Play him. He’s a great shooter, its what he’s paid for.

And all through the House, Former Bobcats past and present were getting their groove on, even Primoz Brezec who defends as if he should be wearing a blouse… OK, I know my rhyming skills need some work, but Christmas is right around the corner and as Bobcats fans I think we all need a little something to lighten the mood. So, With that I present to you 3 videos for your enjoyment.

#1 – Raymond Felton, DJ Augustin, Larry Brown, Primoz Brezec, Gerald Wallace

Moral victory!  Whoooo Hooooo!  Kept it between 3-15 points for the entire game.  After shooting 0-11 to open the game, it’s quite a feat.  I woke this morning and found a new thread here on BobcatsPlanet, “I’m officially done with Larry Brown.”  Larry’s schtick has grown tired round these parts.  His affinity for middle talent “hard working” players like Dominic McGuire, while players that have a lot of potential, like Derrick Brown or Tyrus Thomas are given fewer minutes.  Even the oft maligned Nazr Mohammed is relegated to the bench after a mere 18 minutes.  Nazr is third on the team in field goal percentage,  Probably brought down from last night’s 0-4 performance.  #1 and #2 on that list, Derrick Brown and Boris Diaw respectively.

Last night was a bit of an anomaly.  Atlanta is 17-11 on the year, good enough for 5th in the East.  They had been without Joe Johnson, their best and highest paid (by a lot) player for the past two and a quarter weeks according to ESPN (what is a quarter of a week? 42 hours, not sure how much work their put into finding out when he went under the knife but, whatever).  Losing 3 of their last four, they looked to do what Boston and Memphis did, which was get a big win over the Bobcats.  The Bobcats came in without Gerald Wallace, who injured his ankle and was missing his second game.  On the surface it looked to be one of those games where you weren’t sure who would show up in what capacity, but I never thought  Charlotte would miss their first 11 shots, going scoreless for the first 4 minutes (almost 3 shots per minute, compared to the season average of 1.5 FGA per minute).

Somehow Atlanta never pulled away and DJ Augustin and Boris Diaw kept the ‘Cats in the game with 22 points each.  Stephen Jackson went out near the end of the first quarter with some sort of forearm/elbow injury, had x-rays and came back after halftime.  His shot was off, hitting on only 3 of his 14 attempts.  It was alright, even Larry was a bit cheerful saying “Oh, yeah, I can live with that.”  ”You know me, I would never have a problem when we play that hard.”

Memphis is the greatest team ever assembled.  That’s a fact.  I only watch the Bobcats, you see, and I hear Boston is good, but they only beat the Bobcats by 31, so Memphis is 2 points better.  That’s how it works.

I had to let that one marinade for a day, I couldn’t sit down to write a wrap-up.  I wasn’t pissed, I just don’t really know how to put it into words.  I feel like, well as a Christmas treat, I feel like Clarke W. Griswold Jr. when he opens his Christmas Bonus.

So excited, expecting so much, then OJ Mayo, Rudy Gay and Darrell Arthur go on a dunk fest, sorta like a pre-game lay-up line.  The Bobcats are the jelly of the month club and Larry Brown is Cousin Eddie telling you “That’s the gift that keeps on giving” all season long.  There is a promo currently airing on ESPN that’s a mashup of an A-Team trailer and promo for their basketball coverage.  When they mention coaches, Larry is one of the 4 or so that they show.  Phil Jackson, Stan VanGundy, Popovich are the others.  Larry is supposed to be up there, he’s supposed to be one of those guys that keep their team in it.  Instead he mopes post-game into comments like this:

I couldn’t care less…Well I could but that’d mean not writing this post.  109-91, and that was a mercy 91.  The Philadelphia 76ers, who actually had 2 fewer wins than the Bobcats coming into the game, dominated the game from beginning to end.  So, blurg…..

I don’t know how to describe it, Philly, not very good, starts Meeks for only the second time.  Jodie Meeks scored in piles when he was at Kentucky,  (via Wikipedia) On January 13, 2009, Meeks broke Kentucky’s single-game scoring record (formerly held by Dan Issel) by scoring 54 points in a 90–72 win against rival Tennessee. In that game he also broke Tony Delk‘s single-game record, which he had shared, for three pointers by making 10 of 15 attempts^[2] and was 14 of 14 from the free throw line.

Who was on Meeks when he went 6 for 6 from three in the first quarter?  Stephen Jackson.  Who was responsible for getting a hand in the man’s face?  The entire 5 on the court.  No communication on the defensive end to help Jack on the back-picks, no communication on transition defense for when Meeks wasn’t hitting threes.  What was the other issue?  You guessed it!  Turnovers, bad shots which might as well be counted as turnovers.  They had five in that miserable first.  When you look at the play-by-play chart, you see a lot of “Nazr Mohammed misses 12-foot jumper,”  ”D.J. Augustin misses 17-foot jumper,”  to me a 19 foot shot is the worst you can take.  You are looking at a shot just inside the three point line and you are taking basically the same risk, which is .360 league average, without the reward of the extra point…

So the Bobcats beat the hapless Raptors last night in Canada of all places…who knew they played basketball up there?  The ‘Cats and the Rap’s were both 1-6 headed into last night’s contest, however, coming into the season, the Bobcats were a revised version of a playoff team and the Raptors were 4 games worse, subtract the one dude they had that gave them any wins at all and ehh, not so surprising the Raptors were 1-6 but somewhat surprising that the Bobcats were.  Prior to the win, most of the true fans left were either on the ledge or in a brisk walk towards it.  It’s hard not to be concerned when a team is averaging around 18 turnovers and losing games to teams they theoretically should beat.

I thought, before the win, of proposing a team name change to the Charlotte Chuckin’ Turnovers, as the game versus San Antonio was a chuck-fest with the starters a combined 17 of 54 from the field.  Bad enough for Larry Brown to leave Jackson and Wallace on the bench for the final stretch.  I was so pissed about the shot selection I made some notes that are a bit un-readable and probably in bad taste to air in a public forum such as this.  It wasn’t just a 1-6 start, it was an ugly 1-6.  I realize there are growing pains (or regression pains) from losing your starting center and point guard but I didn’t think the fall off would be this bad.

I guess it was the high of the playoffs and the expectations going forward.  Young talent taking hold, a defined path from leadership on and off the court and a renewed fanbase just starting to shake off the cobwebs from being jilted those many years ago.  I think a lot of people were like me, expecting great things.  Sure the loss of Raymond Felton would hurt, but Larry Brown, Rod Higgins and Michael Jordan had a plan in place and DJ Augustin, while having the sophmore slump, was no slouch.  Tyson Chandler being traded for Matt Carroll, Eduardo Najera and Dust (oh by the way, we were relieved of the French Wonder in that trade as well), while wasn’t an improvement, shook things up and took away 2 of the great what-ifs (as in “What if Tyson could stay healthy?” and “What if that taller Frenchman will ever see real PT in the NBA”).  I didn’t know what to expect but I thought the team would be alright.