Yikes, has the first quarter ended yet? 

If the NBA decided for some reason that the first quarter of all games tonight didn’t count, the Bobcats would have won.  By one.  28 to 10 in the first quarter.  I got the game late as usual and saw after hardly any time that the Bobcats were down 17-0.  I went to the bathroom and I think it was 19 to 4?  I don’t know.  My buddy that sits behind me says “See what you did?  You better get here on time one of these days.”  I tend to agree.   

The Mavs were not that much better.  As Neil Everett asked at the beginning of the “highlights,” who do you think has the worse record, Dallas or Charlotte?  The answer was Dallas.  3 and 7  not that great for a team with 2 Olympian starters, one of which was an MVP 2 years ago.  You know what?  When your leading scorers look like this:

      Mavericks   Charlotte

      Nowitzski 32   Augustin 21

      Howard 21   Felton 11

      Terry 15   S.Brown 11

You aren’t going to win the game most of the time, especially when you get outscored by 18 in the first quarter.   

I’m not mad, I mean they just weren’t done scoring from their overtime 124-114 beating of the Knicks and they have a national TV game against the Rockets tomorrow night.  I am pretty upset with the starters.  Matt Carroll couldn’t find a shot.  Sean May couldn’t cover anyone on defense and he couldn’t get back and move enough to get open on offense.  Emeka Okafor had to step out and guard a 7’ former MVP who hits threes like Jason Terry used to.  I do like the adjustments that were made in the second half.   

Larry went small and young with DJ Augustin, who played huge tonight, Ray Felton, Ajinca, Gerald Wallace and Ryan Hollins?  What?  That’s two PG’s?  Two 7’ guys who weigh less than Shaq, combined?  They went to a full court press with Jason Kidd off the floor, got tons of steals and forced turnovers, made up some of the distance, never got closer than 13 though because Rick brought Kidd back in the game.  I liked that adjustment.   

Gerald had a particularly confusing game to me.  I’m looking at his line and he sure does fill it up like usual but he didn’t put up big totals anywhere.  He had a sick block on a breakaway by Jason Terry, who I thought had been around a lot longer than 9 years.  He had some nice dunks and I’d look up and check to see how many points he had, 4, 6, 8?  What?  I thought he was all over the place but the production wasn’t there.  I think that’s why I like him and also why a lot of people don’t. The eyeball test makes you go “Yeah, this guy is a great ball player.  Worth whatever we pay him, I like him a lot.”  The box score and win/loss total makes you say, “Could we do something with this guy?”  I don’t want to trade him.  He’s the guy on the way up the escalator that you see modeling the uniforms with the mayor at the unveiling (along with silly looking Jason Kapono).  He will make you get out of your seat about 3 times a game.  Gerald does great things in the community as a lot of us learned at the pre-game press conference last season.  He’s not going to do it every night but bang for the buck you’re hard pressed to find a better guy, in my summation. 

Back to this particular game.  Larry, in his postgame presser, sounded down and dejected.  Tone with him is a pretty big thing.  He says what he thinks, almost to a fault.  He didn’t totally rip on the starters but he barely mentioned them.  He heaped praise on DJ Augustin and the bench players in general.  He likes, as do I, what Shannon Brown brings off the bench.  Speaking of bench, what happened to Adam Morrison?  12:42 minutes 2 points, one rebound?  Yikes, not a good night for our white jump shooters, who people get confused a lot up in the two-one-six.  Ajinca and Hollins get mixed up from that vantage point as well. 

Speaking of my vantage point, I was looking right down on Mark Cuban the whole game.  He’s a fascinating person, really.  First thing I had to decide was  if it was him, I thought he was balder and I was staring at his crown.  Second, t-shirt tucked into jeans, with no belt?  Come on you’re a billionaire, with a B!  Get someone to tell you how you look.  He was wearing jeans that as a heterosexual male, made me uncomfortable because they were so high and tight.  He cheers, he high-fives the players, gets in the huddle.  He pays attention to what the fans say, well not everything because I yelled “Hey Mark!  Got any good stock tips?” at the end of the game, probably lame but I was frustrated.  He turned around at one point on a questionable call under the basket on Dudley and let someone in the 5th row that he got whoever it was on the arm.  Something made me want to watch him, maybe because he’s an approachable billionaire? 

I just read the NBA.com, well I guess it’s from the AP, they called the Bobcats “undermanned.”   How?  There were only 3 inactive for the ‘Cats (I’m really trying to be “journalistic” and not say “we” or “us”) (and use parenthesis and quotation marks): J-Rich still with the knee, no worries there.  Linton Johnson III and Alex(I think) Brown.  Who else are we going to have right now?  I don’t see any trades coming.  I don’t see any guys coming in and helping.  Undermanned and SOL if we have these kinds of matchups coming.  Atlanta?  Do they have bad match-ups for us, umm I mean the Charlotte Bobcats.  Damn being objective, it’s us!

Bobcats vs. Mavericks 

“Absentee owner’s” team vs. “Owner who is being sued and is the face of their franchise’s” team   

Seriously could there be 2 owners that were more polar opposites?  Mark Cuban has been the most vocal owner in the NBA for the last 5 years.  He’s been in the local paper and on WFNZ twice as many times as Bobcats’ owner Bob Johnson.  It’s not because Charlotte has a fascination with Cuban, it’s because he has a love affair with the NBA and wants everyone everywhere to hear what he’s got to say about it.  Like it or not, we do, loud and clear.  Bob on the other hand, hasn’t spoken to the city since the end of last season when he complained of getting no help from the area business community.   

Cuban has found himself in trouble with the commissioner plenty of times but now, a billionaire tech/web trader, he finds big trouble with the SEC.  Right now he’s just being sued by the feds for whatever he gained by using his insider knowledge of mamma.com to make/save himself $750,000 or more back in 2004.  There are no criminal charges at this point but that’s not to say there won’t be.  I’m sure for people who deal in these things it’s not a huge deal (people who are worth billions but not in the press everyday for shooting their mouth off), but for a vocal majority-owner of a successful NBA franchise this is massive.  Cuban has drawn attention to himself so much that something like this is bound to happen.  They did it to Martha Stewart, why not Cubes?   

I think that this is just something blown up by ESPN because that’s what they do: they make controversial characters in sports into huge stories when things like this happen.  Look at TO’s “suicide/OD” attempt, Isaiah’s OD, Tom Brady, SpyGate, the Cowboys, Pacman Jones, steroids.  They will spend about 10 minutes covering the Celtics’ championship but hours and hours speculating what Tom Brady had for lunch with Giselle or whoever he’s dating.  ESPN is to sports as E! or Entertainment Tonight is to celeb-retards.  Glad I could get that off my chest.  Oh and PS I know you’re going to read this Simmons because I mentioned the Celtics, we all know you can’t get enough Boston sports.  You can suck it too pal, seriously, no one except for people who are wicked retaaaaaded, care about Boston nearly as much as you.  We get it you’ve been to Vegas and had a great time.  We understand you don’t appreciate any city’s franchises except ones you bet on regularly and ones out of the Northeast.  Breakdown some sports action for once, unless you just don’t understand what goes on between the lines on the field of play.  Keep on watching MTV and go back to doing a local blog about Boston.  Seriously you suck and we all agree on it.  You shouldn’t get excited like you’re one of those devisive people that we all secretly adore, we’re tired of your crap, we’re sick of you being on ESPN.com, ESPN Podcasts, ESPN E:60.  Shut up and go away. 

On to tonight’s game: the Bobcats are closing out their longest home stand of the year.  The 6th straight game at home after hitting the road only twice for overnighters so far this season.  The Mavs are not playing well so far.  3 wins and 7 losses, their worst start since 2000.  They have a new coach this year in the offseason that involved lots of guys that could make the playoffs but not get over the hump being fired.  Cuban probably couldn’t stand to listen to former coach Avery Johnson’s voice any longer, kicked him to the curb and brought in Rick Carlisle.  Rick hasn’t done much that I can recall.  Maybe a few good runs in Indiana and Detroit?  Anyway, Mavs are not the Mavs we all remember from the past few years.   

Charlotte has not been doing that great with their new coach either, but rather than a step sideways or even backwards, we took a huge step forward in the head coaching department.  No worries or even questions there.  Availability could be an issue: Jason Richardson will still be out, probably, if so expect to see Matt Carroll.  Will we see Sean May start again?  I don’t know.  He was effective against Utah but not so much Sunday Afternoon against Orlando.  So is he due?  Big need is someone to step out and guard Dirk, who actually played well for against New York who has a similar front line to the ‘Cats.  That is to say, thin foreign rookie, overweight PF/C, hard working but undersized defensive and rebounding “center” and a few other guys that don’t do a whole lot for anyone on a regular basis.  Likely similar matchups except the Bobcats play better defense as a team.  Knicks average 105.5 against while the Bobcats average 93.   

I don’t like the matchups but this is the NBA, roll the ball out and play.  Mavs aren’t that great and they’re distracted.  Bobcats aren’t great and have been home for like 2 weeks.  Come on boys, need this one, don’t we?