The news was mostly bad in Miami last night. First, the Bobcats lost their 9^th straight game to the Heat. The Heat dominate the Bobcats like Rafael Nadal dominates clay courts, Beyoncé dominates national anthems, Ray Lewis dominates psalms, and Gana Diop dominates White Castle drive-thrus. Second, while the Bobcats were going down in Heat flames, the Wizards were winning their 12^th game of the year against the Clippers, which leaves 11-win Charlotte trapped all alone in an underground bunker of last-place suckage. Third, the Bobcats continued waging their deadly jihad on 4^th quarter leads—albeit this one was only a blown single-point lead. Fourth, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist remains out of action after unsuccessfully using his skull as a cushion for teammate Jeff Taylor’s knee in Houston, and there’s no return date in sight. In summary, Charlotte is slumming once again in the NBA and the rent is too damn high.

But there was some good news last night. First, it took another remarkable effort from LeBron James to enable the Heat to eke out a 5-point win. Bron-Bron shot 13-of-14 for 31 points, 8 boards, and 8 assists (and felt the odd need afterward to point out that he “didn’t plan it that way”). James was covered primarily by Gerald Henderson and Jeff Taylor, each of whom looked tiny enough next to him to pose for a Vogue cover. The Bobcats couldn’t stop King James, nor could they really contain him, nor could they even isolate him (Miami’s Big 3 combined for 64 of their 99 points). But Charlotte at least stuck with their game plan, which was to force LeBron James to beat them…which he then did…so I forget why I put this in the “good” paragraph. But anyway, in general, the Bobcats played a feisty game, narrowly out-blocking, out-stealing, and (get this!) out-boarding the Heat. Ramon Sessions epitomized the team’s toughness by going a perfect 10-of-10 from the line, including once after taking a stiff though mercifully testicle-free shot from Dwyane Wade on a breakaway. And for once in their lives the Cats closed out the perimeter by limiting Miami to just 1-of-12 from 3-PT range. So all of that was good.

When the season finally got started a lot of the talk surrounding the Charlotte Bobcats was not all too positive to say the least. For the most part the team is pretty young; there is not a lot of experience on it; there really isn’t a go-to player in the group.

While I understand the logic behind what most people think, I have to say that three games in I have a lot of hope for these guys still. A recent quote by head coach Paul Silas is exactly why:

“This is probably the first team I’ve had where everybody was so on the same page. You don’t have to point your finger at somebody, saying, ‘you’re not getting…”

What this tells me is that the team is doing the best thing it could do without having a marquee, go-to player on the roster. They are actually playing a team game.

It’s a crazy notion; I know. In a day and age when the game has become more and more about one guy being the offensive focal point–like LeBron James during his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers; like Dwight Howard with the Orlando Magic—the concept of playing a team oriented sport like an actual complete team has become foreign.

Of course some super stars have been forced to come to the stark realization that they alone cannot win championships. This has forced them to team up with other so-called superstars in order to create a supposed dream team of sorts, i.e. those guys from South Beach.

If the Miami heat showed us anything last year, they showed us that teamwork does matter (because they had none at the start of last season when they got off to such a slow start) and while talent can take you a long way if you can’t work together—I’m talking all five guys on the court, not just the Big Three—titles will be hard to come by.

Although the Bobcats came out on the short end of the stick against the Miami Heat, there really isn’t a whole lot to complain about with tonight’s effort.  The Bobcats rushed out to an early halftime lead behind fantastic play from DJ Augustin and crazy first half numbers from Boris diaw ( 14 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block at the half ). Boris finished up with a ridiculous 16 points, 16 rebounds and 8 assists. A more skeptical person might think his numbers this season have something to do with it being a contract year for him, but I’m sure it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with… yeah, nothing at all, Really.

After running out to an early 15 point lead, The Bobcats came out sloppy in the second half turning the ball over in three of their first four possessions. After that slow third quarter start, the Heat slowly chipped away at the lead until this finally happened.

Make all the Juwanna Mann jokes that you want to about Chris Bosh, but he brought it hard in the second half and with Wade missing a good chunk of the second half with a sore foot, Bosh was the predominant reason that the Miami Heat snuck out of Charlotte with a win.

Should we be scared? Should we panic? Should the Cats flee for their lives like the Miami Heat are Omar and the Cats are simply a bunch of corner boys?

Side note: If you haven’t watched The Wire (the greatest television series ever) you should immediately hit up ebay or amazon and snag that series. If for some reason you have watched The Wire but didn’t care for the series, then with all due respect… Go drown yourself.

The answer to the earlier question of should we panic is simply NO. Lebron James and the Heat are coming off of a huge, tough win against the Orlando Magic, this will be the second night of a road back to back for them. The Bobcats on the other hand are coming off of a very successful 4-2 road trip, they are well rested, they are at home and their confidence is high.

The Miami Heat are in prime position to catch a beatdown tonight. Tonight will be a Bobcats win.

Who else is with me?

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.