Just like the rest of the league.  In their last 20 games, the Heat and the Lebronettes are 18-2, the two losses being to Dallas, who, if not for the recent woes, would probably be considered second best in the league.  I had no rose colored glasses for this one.  By the way, who is the last person you know that wore rose colored glasses?  Gorilla Monsoon?  Yeah me too.

It would be an uphill climb.  The Heat turned around a 20 point deficit against Golden State, who had beaten the Bobcats, into a 7 point win.  So logically, I was saying, “Bobcats lost, were behind most of the game to Golden State, Golden State lost a 20 point lead to these freaks, Bobcats lose.”  Easy to see that, isn’t it?  Well, add all that positive negativity, that is, I was positive of a negative outcome, add to that Gerald Wallace was out with his trick ankle, Nazr Mohammed was out with his umm, age.  Via his twitter on January 1, Saturday: “I gotta get rid of these nick-nack injuries cuz I’m ready to take it up a notch for the New Year. Ready to hoop and have fun.#Bobcats”  I think he means ticky-tack, nick-nack are those things your grandma keeps on a shelf….wait, I think he might be right!  He’s kept on the shelf…anyway, you get it.

Worst of all, coming into the game, Gana Diop was listed as out for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon.  What would we do without his 1.3 points per game, over 16 games!  He’s broken the rotation, seemingly to get his trade value up, and the fella ruptured his damn Achilles!  Oh well, no bother…we have umm, Kwame Brown.  Don’t throw things, I’m only the messenger.  For whatever reason he hadn’t yet broken the rotation under Paul Silas, but he’d be thrust into it tonight.  I heard, when Miami was looking at Dust Dampier, they had 6 centers, which really meant they had no centers.  Well the Bobcats had 3 centers, down to Kwame Brown, who Silas obviously didn’t trust to wear a uniform in the previous 2 games…the Bobcats were without a center.

Kwame started, Henderson started in place of Wallace, almost immediately got a foul.  Again, no bother, Bobcats got out to a 7-2 lead and held that 5 point stiff-arm throughout the first quarter, extending it out to 7 at points within the second.  Lebron and DWade decided at some point to start taking things a bit more seriously.  Their defense is pretty outstanding.  But I’m not sure that’s what led to their size-able third quarter lead.  The story of this game was the absolute inability of the Bobcats to make a shot.

From the 4:05 to go mark of the second quarter until the 5:28 mark in the third, the Bobcats didn’t make a field goal and only scored 7 free throws.  They weren’t bad shots, they weren’t forced shots, they weren’t even incredibly contested shots.  They just couldn’t put it in the basket.  So the Heat pulled away, way away and the Bobcats had no chance at that point, got it back to within 12 to close out the game.

Let’s just look at the Heat.  I hate them, not quite as much as Boston but seriously, I dislike this compiling of talent.  3 guys who think they’re special getting together because they think, “Hey, we’re great!  The three of us should beat everybody because everyone will step back and say, wow when each of them were on their own teams, they were really good!  Together they’re unstoppable.”  Well, simply put, it’s not true.  What you have in Miami are the haves and have-nots.  You have Lebron and Bosh making $14.5 mil this year, Wade gets $14mil.  The rest?  Mike Miller is allowed to have $5mil, Haslem $3.5mil, Joel Anthony $3 then an amalgam of guys playing for the vet minimum.  So the “Big 3″ account for 63 percent of the team’s payroll this year.  That’s unsustainable to me.  Compare that to the Bobcats, top 3 earners, Wallace, Diaw, Jackson account for 41% of the payroll.  Maybe not the best example, so let’s look at the league leading Spurs.  Duncan, Parker and Ginobli account for 63% of their team’s payroll.  However, those 3 are only on the books for the next 2-3 years and this is basically where their contracts top out, also, you have guys like Jefferson, Splitter, Bonner, then the rest are on rookie-scale deals.

It’s uneven, as was their scoring last night.  I think this was the first time Wade and James scored over 30 on the same night.  31 and 38 respectively, next was Bosh with 11.  How can they keep this up?  One guy has got to get injured right?  Some team has got to key in on one of them right?  Well, honestly, it pains me to say it, Wade and LeBron are that damn good.  Bosh is incredible at his position and once they figure out the balance, maybe around playoff time, whoo.  My sarcastic comments might come true!

Bobcats move on to Minnesota on Wednesday, the Heat are home versus Milwaukee tonight.  Minnesota is 9-26, not horrible, but there is dissention among the ranks.  Beasley is their leading scorer, he’s crazy.  Kevin Love is their best player, had a good showing against Boston, rebounds like a madman.  But he can’t seem to get along with Coach Kurt Rambis.  Chris Mannix has a nice breakdown of it here…just posted actually.  Interested to see how this one will go.  No Gerald Wallace, likely no Nazr Mohammed, again, can’t express my disappointment properly, NO DIOP!!!  Stephen Jackson has some swelling in his knee, toughed it out last night but showed up this morning with it blown up, MRI showed no major damage.  Tyrus Thomas’s wrist is still a bit messed up, lots of grimacing and he actually missed a shot from the elbow, which is his spot.  He actually charges rent on that spot, or 4 spots, each end, each side, he’s unstoppable, but he missed a shot from there last night.

2-2 for Paul Silas, I expect him to get things going.  No huge disappointments, no embarrassments.  He’s got it going, here’s hoping injuries don’t determine the future.