So, Just when we all give up hope and start concerning ourselves with potential lottery picks more than a possible playoff berth, the Bobcats do the unthinkable and climb back into the race for the final spot. Last night’s victory against the Knicks in conjunction with Friday’s inexplicable short-handed win against the Celtics and a loss by the Indiana Pacers ( thank you Detroit ) have positioned the Cats 1 game out of the 8th spot with 10 games left to play. The Pacers hold the tiebreaker, but still this is more than we could have possibly hoped for considering the position we were in just a week ago.

Looking at last night’s game, the Knicks offered no defensive resistance. The Bobcats put up 64 points in the first half and followed that up with another 50 in the second half. The Bobcats are not an offensive juggernaut by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, so to give up 114 points last night shows that they have some severe defensive problems with their squad. The Knicks allowed the Bobcats to have 8 players reach double figure scoring. Boris Diaw (wait… what???) led the Bobcats in scoring and rebounding with 20 points and 8 rebounds. If we can get Boris to have more than one of these performances per month then we may be on to something.

Yeah, the title is a ploy to get more hits…to all you Moms who clicked here after googling “Bobcats Black Friday” I’m sorry, but read up on why your kids are learning bad words below.  Also, we have T-Shirts!  Child’s large “Make Love to Pressure” the perfect thing to wear to 5th grade.  To all you sorry racists that googled “Deal with black Bobcats” you’re sick, and you’re probably wondering why Matt Carroll doesn’t get more playing time.  We might go after that below so you might as well stick around too.

The Bobcats are disappointing me at this point in the season.  I wrote that 2-6 isn’t all that bad, 5-10 isn’t very good though.  2 straight losses to the Knicks and Raymond Felton sting a bit.  Rumors of fighting between the two biggest stars are definite causes for concern going forward.  The Knicks were 6-8 and the Bobcats 5-8, so seemingly evenly matched…then the Knicks got out to some serious leads, Bobcats tried to come back but fell short.

Again, close but no cigar. Bobcats fell short against Raymond Felton and the New York Knicks. Led by Felton with 23 points and 13 assists, along with Wilson Chandler who had 21 points and 8 boards, and Amare Stoudamire who had 20 points and 6 blocks. The key stat was the Knicks shooting 48% from 3, 12-25 from down town.

Bobcats were led by a massive game from Tyrus Thomas with 26 points, 11 rebounds of which 7 were offensive, and 4 blocks. Along with him Captain Jack contributed with 18 points and 4 steals, and DJ with 14 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. The Bobcats came out of the gates solidly, although giving Stoudamire the first 8 points. However, like most of our losses the 3rd quarter was our let down.

Outscored 30-23 and a 10 point deficit in the 4th quarter, the Bobcats took the lead from an AND-1 play from Tyrus. However, successive misses cost the Bobcats the loss, and although it was again a spirited fight back, the Bobcats fell away at home to go 0 – 2 against the Knicks.

The Charlotte Bobcats came up short last night in the first game of their back to back against the Knicks. In the battle of past and current Bobcats point guards, DJ Augustin more than held his own against Raymond Felton. DJ lit up the Knicks to the tune of 24 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds and 4 steals. Felton countered with 16 points and 9 assists and had his hands full keeping up with DJ all game.

The Bobcats fell into that familiar pattern that we’ve all grown accustomed to. Start off sluggish, fall behind by double digits in the first half, raise the defensive intensity in the 3rd, then turn it over to Stephen Jackson to hit huge shots in the 4th quarter. While I must admit that watching Captain Jack repeatedly nail illogical three pointers in the 4th quarter is entertaining, I’m pretty sure that it is not exactly how you want to structure your late game offense each and every game. Fun yes, Successful no.

Highlights

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Teej chats with SNY’s TheKnicksBlog.com Radio host Anthony “Rice Balls” Donahue about the upcoming home and home with the Knicks, Raymond Felton and Isaiah Thomas. Follow Anthony at TKB Radio on theknicksblog.com or on twitter @AnthonyMSG.

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.