The Bobcats go into Milwaukee against a short handed Bucks team without core players Andrew Bogut and Corey Magette and manage to lose their tempers and the game 104-101 despite another excellent effort from D.J. Augustin (26 points, 6 assists) and a stellar performance from the bench. Bobcats fall to 6-11, Bucks improve to 6-10.
OBSERVATIONS
- Captain Jean Luc Richard Mbah a Moute frustrated Gerald Wallace all evening. Crash couldn’t get anything easy from the post or on the break as Richard was all over him. You won’t see it in the box score (6-12 for 19 points and 5 boards) but Wallace was simply a non-factor for most of the game. Worse yet, Crash left the game at the :07 second mark with a hyper-extended elbow. Great.
- I’ve been writing about it for weeks and it finally happened Saturday night. The refs are openly baiting Stephen Jackson with egregious no-calls. It’s been going on since opening night and JAX finally bit at the 4 minute mark when Eli Roe tossed him. The incident in question was pretty blatant and Jackson was valid in arguing for it. Two Buck players made contact on a JAX post move while Roe stood just a few feet away. I don’t know what the answer is going forward but Larry Brown needs to make a call and send a tape to the League office about this issue pronto. This needs to be discussed.
- It would be wrong to blame D.J. Augustin or his predecessor for their roles in the Brandon Jennings Explosion. The second year point guard has owned the Bobcats for most of his young career and did so again tonight, going for 32 on 10-21 from the field including 6-13 from deep. For one, Jennings is a very good player and he feasts on many outside of the orange and blue but secondly, Larry Brown’s strict man to man D opens the door for ultra-quick, unlimited range PGs like Jennings to wreak havoc. Fortunately for the Bobcats, there aren’t many human beings on the planet who fit that criteria. Fortunately for the Bucks, one of them is their starting point guard.
- Big night for the Bobcats second unit as they combine to score 56 points in spite of an off night from Tyrus Thomas (3-7, 8 points). Both Shaun Livingston and Dominic McGuire log around 30 minutes each and notch 16 and 13 points respectively. McGuire was an absolute BEAST on the boards with 15. Between McGuire and Derrick Brown, the team is much better prepared to be without Gerald Wallace than Stephen Jackson as the dropoff from JAX to Matt Carroll is just too significant.
- I tweeted a trade idea on Friday and I’ll elaborate on it here today: As Al Jefferson is fitting in with his new Utah team like jazz in Salt Lake City, why not send Boris Diaw and Eduardo Najera to Utah for Big Al? Utah could get out from under Jefferson’s lengthier deal and place a much better pick & role player like Diaw into the rotation with Paul Milsap. Meanwhile, Jefferson does for the Bobcats what Zach Randolph has done for Memphis: provide a bonafide post scorer (albeit of the black-hole variety) who opens up the three and demands a double team down low. I also can’t think of a better long term frontcourt mate for Tyrus Thomas than Al.
When you say Tyrus had a off night, I hope you mean off like the coach gave him a good portion of time off not to play, because the man only played abou 17 minutes again, and nobody is really seeing how big a problem this is for the team. Tyrus should be playing 30 plus minutes, instead he gets 17 and still gets the same numbers as Boris Diaw! We just lost to a team that had one starter playing and you don’t see a problem with that? LB needs to be fired!
larry brown needs to be fired? just stop talkin after that. have u forgot what he has done for us? he is the reason gerald wallace is such a good player and why whe are such a good defense team. i could understand if you were talkin about erik spolstra, but this is larry brown.
Rick-
To elaborate:
Yes, Tyrus hasn’t been getting consistent minutes over the last several games. I agree that he should be given at least 30 minutes a night but I can see Larry Brown’s logic in sitting him. Tyrus has been accruing early fouls at an alarming rate and his focus has regressed from earlier in the month. For instance, there was a routine Bucks inbound play midway through the third quarter in which Tyrus instinctively shrouded the out of bounds passer as if it were a full court press. Problem was is that he was the only one performing the press, the rest of the team had gotten back on D. The coaches yelled at him and he got back but in that instant you could see that he’s not where he should be with the mental aspect of the game.
I’m sure Larry is just using the recent benching as a teaching moment. Look forward to seeing plenty of Tyrus and Gerald Henderson moving the rest of the way.
LB should be fired? your an idiot! LB has brought this team out of the cellar. If Gerald Henderson plays last night we have a better game because there is a legit 2 guard out there. Also, without LB DJ probably wouldnt be most efficient PG in league, check the stats before someone like Rick argues that. I think Derrick Brown needs to get more PT though. When he comes in he never tries to do too much and always finishes strong. Never throws up ugly shots, just tries to dunk on everybody and gets fouled in process alot of times. Good defender also. As ASChin said earlier, Tyrus is probably the least smartest player on our team. He has been in league 4 years and Sherron Collins has more brains on the court than him. Tyrus needs to get in film room or something because if he learned the game and had smarts like Boris Diaw he would finally become the player everyone thought he would when coming out of LSU
Charlie, where has Larry taken this team? What has Charlotte done, won the eastern conference championships, won the title? What? Do teams stay horrible forever, so what the Bobcats used to suck and right now they only suck a little, the team is losing winnable games, the coach is making bad decisions, since the off season he’s shown to not really have a strong interest to be here, and he’s reponsible for the teams lack of success. How come the Bobcats give up so many three’s a game, how come the turnovers are so high, why is Diaw still logging major minutes while your player of the future (no matter how dumb YOU think he is) sits on the bench when he’s proven to be a major producer and game changer? If you think Collins is so smart then I guess you think he should get alot more minutes than Tyrus right? And that statement shows me what I’m dealing with, because however smart Collins is, and however dumb Tyrus is, it’s no way you can tell me Collins can produce and help this team win games like Tyrus, or do you think different? As for the film room, had LB got in the film room he’d realise the Knicks, Bucks, Spurs, Rockets, Orlando have players that chuck alot of three’s yet he still hasn’t gotten this into the plaers skulls to nt give up the 3. We’ve lost how many games this year because we’ve given up about 30 points in 3 point shots, that’s coaching right their. And I’ll end this on what Kenny “the Jet” Smith said, when you lose by more than 10-15 points that’s a effort problem but when you lose by 5 or less that’s a straategic coaching probelm, well we’ve lost about 7 games by 3 or less, so you tell me what the problem is?
did a funny swap on espn trade machine….
trading matt carroll for oj mayo directly will only improve our team wins by 2
LMMFAO
I would be all into it if oj value is really that low! haha
Tyrus produces in 17 minutes what Diaw does in 40! Tyrus needs to start! He helps win games, if you don’t think so your not watching the games enough. Tyrus bonehead plays can be corrected by coaching, not benching!
ASChin: No mention of the Gerald injury? The ‘official injury update’ was just tweeted by the team. http://www.nba.com/bobcats/wallace_injury_101128.html
Tough loss for the ‘cats. hopefully they can right the ship and make a push to get above .500.
Rick….you are too funny