Charlotte Bobcats @ Pistons, 11/11/09
Quick Thoughts
The Charlotte Bobcats get blown out on the second night of a back-to-back in Detroit on Wednesday night, 98-75. AP recap here, box score here. I wasn’t able to watch live; had to DVR and watch late, so was already planning on keeping my comments short. That’s a good thing, because this was a joke of a performance.
Second night of a back-to-back notwithstanding, this kind of effort is unacceptable. Facing a revamped Pistons roster that was without holdovers Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince due to injury, the Bobcats hung in through the first 16 minutes, but fell apart soon after. Then came an epically bad third quarter in which the Cats were beaten 29-12, 18-12 by Charlie Villanueva alone.
The Bobcats eventually trailed by as many as 33 in the fourth quarter as garbage time was in abundance. Gerald Henderson, Derrick Brown and Alexis Ajinca played their most extended minutes of the year, though none were impressive.
As Bonnell has already noted, telecasts of Bobcats games generally end with Larry Brown taking questions from a few assembled media-folk. However, by the time that the telecast was wrapping up, Brown had not yet emerged from the locker room. Lord knows what was said in there.
Through the years, the undertalented Bobcats have almost always played hard; always looked like they enjoyed playing with each other. I’m afraid that spirit seems to be eroding this season. Chemistry is nonexistent, body language looks bad. Everyone except Nazr Mohammed seems to have regressed from last year.
My biggest fear is that this season will go the way of Larry Brown’s last season in New York; you know, after he had inspired a bunch of short-sighted trades to assemble an underwhelming team that destroyed the Knicks’ salary cap. Brown ended up publicly feuding with his own bosses as the team tuned him out. Granted, Isaiah Thomas deserves some of the credit for how ugly that situation became, but the upshot is that the Knicks franchise is still digging out from the debacle several years later.
The Cats next chance to assuage my fears comes Saturday night at the Cable Box as the Trailblazers come for their only visit of the year.
The worst effort Ive ever seen Diaw and Flip look disintrested and downright Lazy on the court. Wallace has been very uneffective he cant shot outside and doesnt pass the ball which makes it very easy for Defenses to guard him The only thing he does is finish at the rim and he cant even do that this year. Can we find a trade for Gerald while he still has value. Any takers for Diaw? I once believed Diaw was to valuable to this team because of his versitility But his lack of Intrest and Sloppy Defense have spread through this team Can we get a true 4 for Diaw? After this Game i am starting to believe the Future Power Rankings 30 out of 30 Sad. Is there any Hope for this team?
The Detroit game was about as tough to watch as the opener at Boston. The Bobcats looked like they could control the game until things started to fall apart in the 2nd Quarter.
When the Pistons went on those runs, it was concerning that Larry Brown didn't call more time outs.
The Pistons have some young talent on their roster, that's for sure. They have 4 guards with far superior offensive skills than any of the Bobcats guards. Rodney Stuckey, Ben Gordon, Will Bynum, and Rip Hamilton can all create their own shots. In comparison, I think Raja is the only guard that can dependably come off of a screen and knock down a jumper for the Cats.
Btw, Flip Murray shouldn't start for any NBA team. He'll do fine off the bench, but his one-on-one mentality doesn't help to set the tone for this struggling group.
The bobcats players and coaches keep saying that they need to eliminate empty possesions and turnovers but it seems they are getting worse and they are turning over the ball more and more every game and its leading to more and more points. They really need to start taking care of the ball. This is really starting to piss me off. We are not better than the teams we play so we can't do anything to help them out.
Awful. Just awful. That was bad to watch. It gets frustrating watching such a horrific offense night in and night out. Can we get new ownership asap please?
kinda glad i couldnt watch this one on TV…..