For most of last night, the Bobcats and Spurs played something approximating a game. But with about 3:45 to go in the fourth quarter, the Spurs took a narrow 10-point lead and un-narrowed it, resulting in a 24-point blowout wide enough to drive an El Camino through. This wasn’t exactly surprising, as the Spurs entered the game 15.5-point favorites with the biggest homecourt advantage since the Playboy Mansion—they’re 21-2 at the AT&T Center this year and have taken 17 straight. Still, it was a bummer to see a somewhat exciting game of cat-and-mouse quickly devolve into cat-and-severed-mouse-head.

On the plus side, San Antonio decided to rest Tim Duncan, sparing television viewers nationwide from having to listen to Spurs’ color commentator Sean Elliott endlessly express his intense man-love for “Timmy.” (side note: first Stacey King and now Elliott in back-to-back games—is NBA League Pass trying to get me to throw myself off a building?). Of course, that didn’t stop Elliott from hogging air space like it was San Antonio’s water supply with constant 1988 University of Arizona-era trash talk. He and King are the ultimate commentator trolls, and Elliott’s got to be the only man alive capable of making me empathize with DeMarcus Cousins.

We get it, the Spurs are the better team. The much, much better team. They’ve won won nine straight now and their record (37-11) basically is a mirror image of the Charlotte Bobcats’s record (11-34). But that doesn’t excuse a sorry offensive effort that saw just three Charlotte players score in double figures, and a guy off the bench (Ramon Sessions) leading the way with 22 points.

Plain and simple: the Bobcats stunk on Wednesday night. I should probably be used to it by now, but I just don’t understand still how one guy in the starting five can top 10 points. In fact, Kemba Walker only scored 16 points, and no one else in the starting lineup could muster up more than seven.

That’s pathetic.

I was on the optimistic side before the season began when analyzing the prospects of the Charlotte Bobcats for the first month of the season. I was criticized a bit for predicting a 6-9 November start, and while I freely admit it was a bit of a reach at the time, it turns out my lofty expectations of a young (but talented) team weren’t so far fetched, after all. In fact, the Bobcats topped my prediction, and finished the first month of the season at 7-8.

They kickoff the month of December tonight against the Portland Trail Blazers, so it only made sense to get back to the magic eight ball and try to predict how the team will do over the course of the next month. It’s a month of giving, cheer, and holiday. Let’s see if the Bobcats will be spending it in a good mood or not as we break down and predict each game:

1. 12/3 – vs. Portland Trail Blazers (Loss)

Portland is inconsistent, but they’re bigger and stronger than Charlotte. This one could get messy at home.

2. 12/5 – vs. New York Knicks (Loss)

New York has struggled on the road a bit, but they shouldn’t in this one. They spread out the floor with the best of them and can hurt you inside and out. Their offense will simply be too much for the Bobcats in this one, as they start December 0-2.

3. 12/7 – @ Milwaukee Bucks (Win)

They’ve beaten Milwaukee before and the Bucks are a pretty inconsistent team. Charlotte can bang down low with them and they matchup well at the guard spots. It’ll be close, but I think the Bobcats get their first win of the Christmas season here.

The Bobcats visit to San Antonio on Friday was the least successful one since Ozzy Osbourne peed on the Alamo.  And at least Ozzy presumably hit what he was aiming for. “I just think as a group we’re not shooting the ball well,” said Corey Maggette afterward, in a spectacular understatement.  The Bobcats couldn’t shoot heroin at this point, and Friday’s 37% effort was entirely representative of the team’s dead-last TS%.  For the season, the only two guys averaging more than 50% from the field are DJ White and Derrick Brown, who also happen to rank just 8^th and 10^th in shots taken.  And how about Eduardo Najera going 0-for-3 last night, with all three of his shots being 3-pointers?       Basically, the Bobcats are not only physically inferior, they’re also stupid with the ball.  Cheering for this team is like watching the “Run, Forrest, run!” scene in Forrest Gump, only if he’d tripped and the bullies caught up with him, and then proceeded to beat him until he went cross-eyed.

It’s tough to pick a turning point in this game; it’s like picking a turning point in the Tyson-Spinks fight.  But believe it or not, the Bobcats actually had a 16-12 lead after 5 minutes.  However, this is also about the time when it became apparent that Gana Diop—subbing for the injured Bismack Biyombo—was not going to be able to travel up and down the court for much longer without the assistance of a tractor.  Sure enough, with 3:41 to go he essentially expired at half-court, and with his dying breath he handed the ball over to Tony Parker for an unobstructed layup.  This was part of an 11-0 run by the Spurs that put them ahead for good.  This is also probably a bad time to mention that Diop outscored DJ Augustin 4-to-2.

That sound that you are hearing is our playoff hopes slowly slipping away. Last night’s loss to the OKC Thunder combined with an Indiana Pacers win against the Chicago Bulls drops the Cats to 9th in the Eastern conference, 1.5 games behind the Pacers. To make matters even worse the Pacers also hold the tiebreaker against us and if you’re the type of person to look in your rear-view mirror the Milwaukee Bucks also won last night which allowed them to creep to 1 game behind us.

While it won’t be official until later tommorow, it’s all but a certainty that Larry Brown will be fined $50,000 by the NBA for his comments regarding officiating following a 91-88 loss to the Orlando Magic.

Brown had been asked about Stephen Jackson’s $50,000 fine that day for “verbal abuse” of officials, and responded with a criticism of how officials are taking advantage of the “Respect the Game” rules. When asked about the situation, which came from a loss in Detroit, Brown had this to say:

“I know I went ‘Wow.’ and the referee went bang, ‘gotcha’, and I got a technical for saying ‘Wow.’ And they said they had a lip reader on Stephen. Somebody read lips, I don’t know. This respect for the game goes both ways. Our trainer got cussed at tonight. Yeah. That’s respect for the game.

So it blows me away. For me to say ‘Wow’ and a guy to go ‘gotcha’ and there’s no recourse and that they were lip reading as he was walking away, 50 feet…I don’t know.”

According to a source within the organization, Bobcats majority owner Michael Jordan has already had multiple conversations with NBA Commissioner David Stern regarding both NBA officials and the new rules. Stern views Jordan favorably, and if any owner would be able to convince the commissioner of issues in the system, it would be Jordan, the only owner who played in the league.