Last night’s  effort against the Hornets was puzzling to say the least. Lately we seem to be falling into a pattern of not giving an all out effort until the 4th quarter when the game is inevitably out of reach. BobcatsPlanet member Keetch gives his analysis after attending last night’s game.

Except for JRich and maybe Felton; I don’t see anyone really playing
hard on Defense.  I know Wallace has a way of moving around and cutting
off passing lanes, and is good for one or two spectacular blocks, but
otherwise he’s often way out of position; at least until the last 5
minutes of the game when he seems to wake up.

I’m not a coach
and definitely not a defensive authority by any means, but last night I
just kept rewinding the DVR to try to see how the Hornets kept getting
wide open looks and/or to the basket.

What I saw were Bobcats
out of position; literally not even close to the man they were
guarding; standing flat footed while out-of-position; not "rotating" as
they say…; the bigs especially routinely leave their man to help the
perimeter (which even at that they’re always too late to really be any
help), leaving the paint wide open for Wallace or JRich to wave at
Chandler/West hell anybody or to foul.  They often were beaten up court
even when there was no reason for it.

Yes the Hornets were
excellant at setting screens; but that only made the process more
brutal.  Felton was hustling, but was normally the first guy picked
off; he’s probably pretty bruised right now.  And while Felton was
being hammered, some other Bobcat like Nazr or Okafor would be on the
way to help only to get blown by…all night.

Rebounding…ugh… 
The backboard camera had a really fun way of showing 3 Bobcats with
hands up, but elbows down standing behind one Hornet getting the
rebound or put-back.  Just awful.

Okay if the guys really want
to win; and I’m sure they do..why aren’t they playing harder?  I’m
worried that the coaching they are getting is confusing and they’re
just shutting down out there.  The pain-faces on the players are
becoming numb-ride-this-out faces and that worries me.

I also
see little from Vincent on the sideline other than pursed lips and
rolling eyes; which might be sending the message "not my fault; this
isn’t my team" instead of getting into the players and motivating them
with a little grilling.  Too often he stands at the scorers table with
his arms crossed, then when something bad happens he turns his back to
the court and slumps into his chair.  Wrong message. Jeez….I don’t
know.

I hope Sam can get this together, but its getting worrisome.

In my opinion the common issue in the majority of our losses is a lack of effort feeding the post and too much of a reliance on perimeter players. To put it in perspective in the past two games (both losses)  Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace has combined for a total of 75 shots, Emeka Okafor and Nazr Mohammed combined for only 35 shots.

Sam Vincent comments on this in today’s Charlotte Observer .

A good start would be reminding themselves of the inside-out
approach that won them two of three games recently. Coach Sam Vincent
and managing partner Michael Jordan want the ball in Emeka Okafor’s
hands in the post, either for easy baskets or to contract the defense
around him. Okafor took five shots Friday (making three). When he
contributes so little offensively, the Bobcats typically lose.

"They’re
not (always) comfortable he’s giving them the target they need to make
the pass,” Vincent said of the point guards finding Okafor.

Friday night the New Orleans /  previously Oklahoma City / originally Charlotte / rumored to be Seattle in a few years Hornets come to town to play the Bobcats.

Its very doubtful that George Shinn pictured to the left will makie his way to town. He’s far too busy with his hobbies of biting the heads off chickens, practicing witchcraft, drinking infant blood and getting 666 tattoos… busy, busy, busy.

While we won’t have Shinn here to kick around on Friday, we will have Chris Paul who has been playing out of his mind the last several games, including dropping 40 on the Grizzlies last night ( by the way, the Grizzlies fans are a tad bit pissed about it ). For the season hes averaging 21.7 ppg, 10 apg, almost 3 steals while shooting just a shade under 50% from the field. As much as it pains me to say it, those are MVP caliber numbers. Raymond Felton is going to have his hands full Friday night.

If you’d like to follow the action on Friday night as always you can join us in our game thread or in the chatroom .

If you’d like to follow the game from the cowardly, panty waist, egg sucking Hornets perspective then we recommend the following.

hornets247 

hornetsreport  

The big news prior to last night’s game was that Michael Jordan sent a “State of the Bobcats”-type of letter to the season ticket holders—cool!  I wonder if he gave it some sort of official “Jumpman” seal in the letterhead.  Not sure if he created a Bobcats Fan Bill of Rights, but MJ basically accepted responsibility for everything except leaving customers on an airport tarmac for ten hours.  Apparently His Airness is also “disappointed” with our 19 wins (although with this lineup, one wonders how many he expected at this point—22, 23?), and then he went on to say that “if you know anything about me”—which is kind of a funny line considering he’s arguably one of the 5 most famous people on the planet—“you know how much I hate to lose.”  Jordan also made several guarantees that the team would begin acquiring big time free agents, which was important, because lately I’ve noticed a lot of managers are reluctant to admit that they’re always looking for ways to improve the team.
 
No doubt spurred on by MJ’s Address, the Bobcats looked terrific last night against New Orleans.  When we last played the Hornets in November our problem was Peja Stojakovic.  Not this time, as Peja not only hasn’t carried the team on his back as hoped, he also injured his back and has been gone practically the whole season.  Also out for the Hornets was some guy named Marcus Vinicius, which didn’t really impact anything either way, but I wanted to mention it because having spent the previous hour watching the latest episode of Rome, it threw me for a loop. 
 
Anyway, this time the problem was Chris Paul, who just before halftime snapped and drove to the hoop himself, like, five straight times, brought the Hornets to within ten, and then started the 3rd quarter sprinting again and briefly putting New Orleans ahead.  He capped it all off by nearly getting most of the Bobcats ejected after initiating one of those shoving/pushing deals that resulted in a bunch of technicals.  It was a fairly benign fracas as these things go, although I’m sure it won’t stop the New York Times, Newsweek, and possibly even The Economist from starting a new cycle of “Another Black Eye for the NBA” series of articles. 
 
Though CP3 won that battle, it was arch-nemesis Raymond Felton and company who won the war.  Rejuvenated by the weekend’s Sophomore-Rookie Challenge, in which he and Adam Morrison scored 17 and 16 points, respectively (although considering the level of defense in that game, those numbers may actually have been below average), Felton had a commanding 21 points and 11 assists while pulling triple duty (Jeff McInnis was out, and Brevin Knight…well, from now on I’ll just report when he’s in).  Felton had help from the usual suspects: Emeka Okafor (16 points, 15 rebounds, 5 blocks), and Gerald Wallace (21 points, 7 rebounds), who I’d describe as “ninja-like,” except I don’t imagine ninjas often called for five personal fouls and a technical for pushing and shoving.  Wallace also had an awesome slam on Jannero Pargo —not sure if it qualifies as “posterizing,” since Pargo’s only 6-1, but it was impressive
 
And hey, who’s that old guy running around out there, playfully goofing around with (a younger looking) Byron Scott in between drawing charging penalties—were we the ones who ended up taking a chance Scottie Pippen?  Oh no, wait, it’s Derek Anderson!  That’s right, he’s with us, isn’t he?  Man, he’s been out for so long, I couldn’t remember if he was injured or if we’d only hired him as a part-time consultant.  Derek’s Crafty Efficiency Rating has got to be among the best in the league, and he drew a huge foul at the end of the game and then sank two free throws to ice it.

{moscomment} 

In our forums we’ve had an ongoing debate on whether Chris Paul is really any better than Raymond Felton . Yeah, I know that CP3 is your runaway favorite to be the 2006 rookie of the year, hes everybody’s media darling, solid citizen, everybody loves him, blah blah blah, but lets look at it a little more closely. As always, numbers don’t lie.
{mosgoogle}
Games which they’ve played more than 35 minutes:
Felton 16.7 points, 6.6 assists, 5.1 rebounds 46%FG 50% 3pFG
Paul 16.2 points, 8.0 assists, 5.4 rebounds 43%FG 30% 3pFG

Over the past two games when hes been able to play the majority of his minutes at the point guard spot , and hes put up all star caliber numbers.
16 points 13 assists 7 rebounds
30 points 10 assists 7 rebounds 5 steals

In my ( slightly biased ) opinion, Chris Paul is a solid player, but Raymond is every bit his equal. Felton came into a situation where the team already had an established veteran point guard, so for the first portion of the season he had to get his minutes at backup PG. Once the Bobcats got hit with a wave of injuries he was forced to play out of position as the starting shooting guard, CP3 on the other hand walked into a team that had a gaping hole at point guard, so he was given the keys to the car from day one. An argument that I get from the Chris Paul supporters is that hes led them back to the spotlight, into playoff contention yada, yada, yada, but lets get serious. CP3 isn’t leading his team back to the playoffs, when they hold the draft lottery this year, The Hornets will be praying for their ping pong ball to come up, just like the Bobcats. Go ahead all of you Chris Paul groupies, bash me all that want to, but the fact remains we’ve got a rookie point guard just as good as yours…. and maybe a little better.

{moscomment}