Oh brother, didn’t we just play these two teams?  Cheering for the Bobcats is starting to feel like cheering for Law & Order reruns.  The Bobcats played the Bucks and the Hawks each for the second time in about 5 minutes, and the outcome on both occasions was the same as always: miserable, humiliating failure.  This is no diversion from my regular life at all; in fact, it’s just like real life: tedious and repetitive.  I don’t know why I keep coming back for more.  And yet I do.  What can I say?  When the night falls, my loneliness calls…

Perhaps it’s the fun of deciphering coach Paul Silas, who in an article with Hardwood Paroxysm, offered up this analogy for Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo: “It takes at least two to three years before they really understand how to play. So the guy might have a lot of athletic ability, but it’s like a baby. A baby and a two year-old, it’s quite a difference.”  Much to my surprise, the next line in that quote was not, “Now hand me another bottle of glue to sniff.”  Besides just being deeply weird, does that analogy even work?  After all, how much more sophisticated is a 2 year-old than an infant?  A 2 year-old is still largely immobile, cries heavily, and defecates itself.  In fact, even its few advancements are mostly undesirable: it can now bite, scream, refuse, and destroy.

Unfortunately, against the Bucks on Friday, Walker played little better than an actual 2 year-old, spitting up 6-for-26 shooting and drooling out 4 turnovers.  On the other hand, at least one of our players looked like he’s ready for middle school, and that would be Byron Mullens.  On the strength of his 31-and-14 effort, the Bobcats managed to grope their way to a 1-point lead late in the game, causing the Bucks announcers and the entire Milwaukee crowd to collectively push the panic button.

After the Bobcats lost to Milwaukee on Saturday, Rick Bonnell wrote that it “was the 20th time in a 7-38 season the Bobcats have lost by 20 or more points.”  Well the joke’s on you, Rick: it’s only been 15 games.  How do you like them apples, sucker?  I actually went back and counted to verify it, which is a totally depressing exercise, by the way; it’s like counting your herpes sores.  (Remember that 112-68 loss to the Trail Blazers!?  Holy Jesus.  Holy Buddha.  Holy Zeus.  Holy Mormon Garden of Eden in Jackson County, Missouri.)

Anyway, the fact that we haven’t lost as many games by 20 points as I feared was about the only good news to come out of the Milwaukee game—that and Stephanie Ready’s outfit.  I didn’t know that Burberry had recently merged with Skittles.  I guess this was in support of the latest retro-Cougars outfit night, but she should always do that; even her face was a refreshing burst of fruit flavors.  The rest of the game was not only nightmarish, it was prolonged unnecessarily by Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles’ inexplicable need to take 4 full timeouts, including one when they were ahead by 23 with four minutes to go.  Skiles’ moods range from frothing-at-the-mouth to silently seething, but I would have have thought that even he must have felt something approximating satisfied.

Without an experienced center, the Bobcats’ interior defense has emptied out faster than Charlie Sheen’s medicine cabinet.  Tyrus Thomas and Bismack Biyombo are constantly sliding to help the beaten guards, and neither of them boxes out very well.  And Thomas isn’t good at covering his own man, let alone helping others. The end result is 72 points for the Bucks in the paint (or maybe it was only 65—not sure if I can ever trust you again, Rick), led by Drew Gooden, who continuously swooped down like the Avenging Angel of Offensive Rebounds to smite the Bobcats.  Bobcats color commentator Dell Curry used the phrase “all alone” to describe Milwaukee’s bigs and back-door cutters so often he sounded like he was reading from the Craigslist personals section.

The Bobcats’ first two regular season games have been so exciting that they’ve moved Charlotte Observer writer Scott Fowler to new heights of prose.  After our opening night 1-point win over Milwaukee, Fowler described it as “good theater” in his post-game column.  But our narrow loss to the defending Eastern Conference Champion Heat on Wednesday wasn’t just good theater for Fowler, “it was great theater.”  I can only imagine how he’s going to react to our upcoming game with Orlando.

Theatrics aside, there’s a ton to appreciate to the Bobcats 1-1 start, both with our team and with the opposition (I’m just so glad basketball is back in our lives!). Here are my takeaways, in chronological order:

The season just started and I spent all day analyzing the Milwaukee game and you saw it (or maybe you didn’t), our cats came out on top looking MIGHTY FINE. I must admit, it sounds pretty good to my ears, that we are undefeated late in December. But like the Milwaukee fans after last game, the league doesn’t really seem to like us much, so they are throwing 2 games vs the Heat and 1 vs the Magic in our next three games. Are we looking at 1-3 after four games? I’m afraid it looks that way, but I know better than to write off the Bobcats at any point.
This season we play the heat 3 times, and though I never say never, I have my doubts that we’ll sweep them and go 66-0 this season. So for the guys not as optimistic as Ziggy was in his post, our next few games, might be the toughest and most important ones of the season.
Winning against the Bucks was a blessing for our young rookies. Being on a small market team like the Cats with not much but losing records and M.J. to show for, winning is alpha and omega. Against the Bucks, we saw just how much our future star point guard wanted just that and I was extremely impressed with both him and the rest of the bobcats (though we were far from perfect). But beating the Bucks at home is not the same as taking on the Heat twice and Orlando once in 5 days, and for this stretch more than ever, our coaching staff needs to get to work. I go on and on about confidence, and its stretches like this after a great win in our opener that can take the sky high confidence of a rookie and crush it like a bug. I think it’s extremely important to teach these rookies and young players how to deal with their ego and confidence, and here I go trying to break down this next three games and how to preach to our guys.

That’s right people, The Charlotte Bobcats are a mere 65 wins away from putting together that mythical 66-0 perfect NBA season that the city of Charlotte and the NBA has been buzzing about. Who gives half a crap about that funky little 16-0 that the Green Bay Packers were working on in the NFL this season, when you have a team like our Bobcats on the verge of such a legendary season… Um, yeah.

There were plenty of heroes in tonight’s game versus the Milwaukee Bucks.

• For starters we had our point-center-pseudo-smallforward or whatever the hell he is Boris Diaw playing all over the court and racking up a near triple double. Boris had 9 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 blocked shots for good measure (my fantasy team humbly thanks you).

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde best personifies the 2010-11 Charlotte Bobcats campaign. After spending the latter part of February and early March mired in a losing slump, we as Bobcats fans were spending just as much time talking about lottery selections in the NBA Draft, as we were first round playoff match-ups. However, the Ides of March have now brought upon us a three game winning streak capped by last night’s dramatic finish against Milwaukee at the Cable Box in Uptown Charlotte.
Stephen Jackson led the Bobcats’ score sheet with 18 points, but Gerald Henderson stole the show in the waning moments. Scoring the final seven points for Charlotte, Henderson came off of well-positioned screens and nailed back-to-back jumpers from the elbow in clutch fashion to secure the Bobcats win. The second-year pro has stepped up all year since Coach Silas gave him the green light and his future is bright in the Queen City. Prior to being injured late in the game, DJ Augustin was dishing out dimes like candy. DJ’s replacement, Shaun Livingston was sidelined as well in the third quarter after Drew Gooden went WWE on him with a pretty brutal foul. D-League call-up Garrett Temple filled in nicely down the stretch and the rest of the Charlotte bench shouldered the load for the ailing Bobcats.