Apparently getting embarrassed in Orlando, Denver and Los Angeles wasn’t enough. The Charlotte Bobcats, missing captain Stephen Jackson, made it a perfect 4-for-4 of disgrace on their road trip, being trampled by the Portland Trail Blazers 93-69. Gerald Henderson led the Bobcats with 16 points, and that’s all you need to say to know it was a bad night.

If there was a worse way for this game to have gone, I’m not sure what it is. Star player is injured, your team loses, and opposing team’s star sits the entire fourth quarter. In a rivalry that your team has dominated. Yup, that’s about all I can say for tonight’s Charlotte Bobcats loss in Los Angeles.

After the trades of co-captain Gerald Wallace and Nazr Mohammed yesterday, and the requisite waiving of Sherron Collins, Dominic McGuire and Derrick Brown, the Charlotte Bobcats entered tonight’s game against the Sacramento Kings with eight players in uniform. Stephen Jackson, DJ Augustin and Gerald Henderson made sure that wasn’t a problem.

When you are chatting away with a bunch of friends while watching the Bobcats get an overtime win over the Timberwolves, a lot of strange topics tend to come up. While in the BCP Chat Room last night we had in depth discussions on the following topics:

• If DJ Augustin shaved his head, He would probably look quite a bit like The Russian Bear Ivan Koloff. He may want to get out the hair clippers and give that new look a try.
• “Jack at the half”? No one else with the Bobcats found that hilarious when they came up with that segment name?
• Eduardo Najera has a new nickname, he will now simply be known as “The Machete”
• Speaking of nicknames, how do you like Kwamegeddon!!! That gem is courtesy of Proudiddy.
• On Kevin Love’s MVP chants that he was receiving last night: “MVP chants, really, are they still serving drinks during OT?“

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.

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.”