See what I did there?

If you thought the hole was going to be safe with Blake Griffin around then you were very sadly mistaken. Apparently he has very little regard whatsoever for the sanctity of the aforementioned hole.

Take a look for yourself.

Blake Griffin is NOT human. The proof is below:

I’m fairly certain that 12 hours later Timothy Mozgov is still somewhere weeping quietly, curled up in the fetal position after having the misfortune of being violated on this dunk. This has to be the dunk of the year.

I know, I know, it’s not Saturday, and none of this actually happened on Saturday to begin with. But I decided with this glut of information to throw at you I should just make a Godfather post, starting in the Queen City and ending in Disney World. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

The beginning would be in Time Warner Cable Arena on Friday night. Your Charlotte Bobcats played the much-maligned Los Angeles Clippers, one of the most poorly managed franchises in all of sports. They didn’t play like it for much of the game, though, keeping pace with the Bobcats. However, part of that likely had to do with former Charlotte Hornet Baron Davis drawing a flagrant foul on Gerald “Crash” Wallace in the 2nd quarter, which left Wallace out for this game and likely a while longer, but we’ll get to that later. In the short term, that didn’t matter, with Stephen Jackson’s 24 points and 6 assists leading the ‘Cats to a 106-98 victory. Jackson had assistance from Raymond Felton’s near triple double (10 points, 11 assists, 8 rebounds), Boris Diaw’s 16 points and 5 assists, and Tyson Chandler’s spectacular 13 points and 9 rebounds off the bench. Wallace had 17 points, 6 rebounds and 4 steals in 21 minutes. Michael Jordan was not present, missing his first game since it was announced he’s buying the team. He was with his son Jeff, who is on the Illinois basketball team that was competing in the Big Ten tournament.

Wallace has been diagnosed with a sprained ankle, and missed the entire second half of the Clippers game, tonight’s game against the Magic (recap below) and is out for Tuesday’s game in Indiana. His status after that is “day-to-day” and he will take off the protective boot upon arrival in Indianapolis. When asked about Wallace’s condition, Stephen Jackson simply said “Pray.” In other injury news, Center DeSagana Diop had dizzy spells during a Thursday practice and is out until at least Atlanta, possibly longer depending on tests. No word on Center Nazr Mohammed’s progress, though with the tremendous play lately by Theo Ratliff and Tyson Chandler, no rush to either Gana or Naz. Get well, guys.

We learned over the weekend that another injured player has been added to the Bobcats roster. That would be former 76ers first round pick Larry Hughes, who played for Larry Brown in Philadelphia and for Michael Jordan and Bobcats GM Rod Higgins in Washington, along with being a teammate of multiple current Bobcats. He is expected to be able to play within 7-10 days, and will be a backup shooting guard and the emergency third point guard if DJ Augustin or Raymond Felton were to get into foul trouble or be injured. Hughes will be playoff roster eligible, and since he will likely be able to adequately replace Flip Murray, the trade for Tyrus Thomas becomes that much more of a steal. Hughes has also played for Golden State, Cleveland, Chicago, and New York. He averaged 22 points per game with the Wizards in 2004-2005, and was the inaugural recipient of the Austin Carr “Good Guy” Award, for being helpful to the Cleveland media and community.

The last major update takes us to Orlando, where the ‘Cats were on the road tonight to face the Orlando Magic. Without Crash, Stevie Graham made his 6th start of the season, and Captain Jack took over the load once again, with 28 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists to help get the ‘Cats their sixth straight win, 96-89. Graham added 12 points and 6 rebounds, Ray Felton put in 16 and dished out 7 assists, Theo Ratliff had 10 points and 9 boards, and Tyrus Thomas had 9 points and 9 rebounds. The Bobcats held the free-shooting Magic to 11-32 three point shots, or 34%. Sharpshooters Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson, and J.J. Redick combined to go an abysmal 1-12 from behind the arc. Dwight Howard led the Magic with 27 points on 12-14 shooting, but was 3-10 from the free throw line. Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy said postgame “We weren’t very good at anything.” While that might be a bit harsh, he’s right in that the Bobcats are on a roll and have been playing excellent basketball, with or without their All-Star. Yankees Ace C.C. Sabathia drove up to see good friend Stephen Jackson play against the Magic despite pitching earlier in the day.

Rick Bonnell noted recently that

“All you fools who made fun of me for writing it would be a huge mistake for the Bobcats to sign Allen Iverson (you know who you are; I can look up the responses) can send me your heart-felt apologies soon as possible.”

While I assume Rick was just being trivial or attempting humor, he was not only wrong to begin with (what else is new) but he called his readers fools, which in jest or not, none of us here at BCP will ever do. Now, let’s look at why Mr. Bonnell is wrong. When the discussion for this signing was being made, Stephen Jackson was still playing in California, Bob Johnson seemed to be well in control of the team and Gerald Henderson was the only backup shooting guard. What many of us were asking for was what Memphis did very well. Sign Iverson, sell a ton of jerseys and tickets, and if he doesn’t work out, waive him with a minimal hit to the team. What’s so “wrong” about that, Rick?

Notes: Larry Brown has been rumored to both the Philadelphia and LA Clippers Head Coaching jobs, even though neither is technically available, but he said that him staying is “up to Michael (Jordan).” For right now, it appears MJ wants Larry around, and no changes are imminent…The Bobcats sale to Michael Jordan is expected to go through by the end of this week, at which time we will have a special ownership edition of Michael’s Minute with Bobcats Director of Corporate Communications Michael Thompson. If you go to the forum, you can submit a question you’d like answered.

The strong showing (1-3 after the All-Star break) continued for the Bobcats as they drop their second game in a row, this one to LAC, (98-94). The team seems to be going in reverse after the All-Star break. Gerald Wallace had another strong double-double with 32 points and 12 rebounds. You might ask “what happened?” Well, what happened was this: 18 turn-overs that led to 21 points for the Bobcats but they were outplayed and out-defended down the stretch. The ‘Cats were also out-rebounded 55-44. The trades, before the dead-line for (T. Thomas and T. Ratliff) were suppose to help take pressure off G. Wallace and help in the rebounding department. Ratliff had 2 (in 30:52 minutes) and Thomas had 4 (25:12 minutes), not much help. Wallace also played 48 minutes. This is not turning into the strong second-half stretch run many of us had envisioned. I suppose one could argue that getting two new players, (Thomas and Ratliff), “up-to-speed” with the rest of the team could be made. The problem with the argument is that the Clippers brought in three new players that played last night, (D. Gooden, S. Blake, and T. Outlaw), so I think that argument would have to work for both teams. Not only do the Clippers have the new players, but also a rookie head-coach (Kim Hughes) that took over after M. Dunleavy stepped down.

Close games (losses) do not seal a teams play-off seed. It does just the opposite! The loss dropped the Bobcats into ninth (behind the Bucks) position in the Eastern Conference and out of the play-offs for the moment. The Bobcats have 27 games left in the season to “play the right way” and get themselves in the play-offs. But if they continue this strong-surge in reverse, the elusive play-offs will elude them again!
The Bobcats are now one game under the .500 mark at (27-28).

The ‘Cats and Bucks are tied with the same record, (27-28), but the Bucks hold the tie breaker and the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Good:

Gerald Wallace with another double-double.

Boris Diaw with 20 points.

Team turnovers (13).

The Bad:

Team shooting (43.6%).

Out-hustled by a team going no-where.

The Ugly:

Stephen Jackson shot (1-16, 0-5 3 pts.) for the game.

Out-rebounded 55-44.

Next game for the Bobcats: Wednesday 2/24/10 9:00pm at Utah Jazz

Ever since we made that strong run in the month of January, we (the fans) have thought that it was a lock that the Bobcats were going to make their first ever playoff run, but with losses last week to the Nets and Bucks along with last night’s loss to the Clippers we are on the outside looking in. Technically we are in an 8th place tie with the Milwaukee Bucks but they hold the tiebreaker and if the playoffs started today, the Bobcats would be making vacation plans.

Somehow, some way the team has to be able to bottle the efforts that they give against the upper echelon teams, like last week’s win against the Cavs and use it against the middle of the pack and lower level teams.

Looking at last night versus the Clippers, Tyson Chandler was out with achy feet ( In other news water is wet, Manute Bol is tall and porn stars are not virgins ), Nazr Mohammed was out with back spasms and Gana Diop was out with a knee. As a result, Chris Kaman pounded the interior with 18 points and 13 rebounds. Rasual Butler led the Clippers with 20 points including 4 three pointers.

On the Bobcats side of the ledger, Gerald Wallace looked like his old self with 32 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals ( my fantasy team appreciates those numbers ) and Boris Diaw flirted with a triple double with 20 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists. Captain Jack on the other hand had his worst game in a Bobcat uniform with 7 points on 1-16 shooting. Don’t worry Jax, there are 27 games left and plenty of pressure to make sweet love to for the remainder of the season.

Lets hope that the Cats can put it together and get a win against a very tough Jazz team tomorrow night.

Highlights via the magic of Youtube

Recaps from around the intertubes…

The BCP Game Thread

Charlotte Observer

Rufus on Fiyaaaahhh!!

Queen City Hoops

Bobcats Baseline

Last night we defeated the LA Clippers to finish up our road trip 3-2. The Clippers were without their starting center Chris Kayman and outstanding rookie Eric Gordon, so this would have been a severe disappointment to let this very winnable opportunity slip by. Thankfully after some very choice words by Larry Brown, Emeka Okafor and rest of the Bobcats stepped it up and did what they needed to do against the Clips who were clearly outgunned.

Now we’re only 3 games out of the 8th spot with 22 games left and we’re sitting at 25-35. Will 39-43 get us in? That would take a 14-8 finish which is somewhat doable in my opinion with the way that we’ve been playing lately.

Next up are the Chicag Bulls on Tuesday night. I’m guessing that Derrick Rose will be looking for a little revenge after DJ Augustin lit him up nicely in their previous matchup. This is going to be a tough game, but its another one that we need to win if we’re going to make up some ground and slide into that #8 spot.  Tuesday night should be fun.