Charlotte Bobcats @ Timberwolves 2/10/10
26-25, 6th In East At All-Star Break
The Charlotte Bobcats eeked out a lucky road win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night, 93-92. After leading by over 20 in the first half, and double digits early in the fourth, the Bobcats looked like they wanted to get an early start on their All-Star Break plans, as they let the Timberwolves creep back and take a three-point lead with under a minute left.
Fortunately, following a Boris Diaw layup and a stop on the other end, the Cats had a chance for the win with under 30 seconds left. Boris missed a 20-foot jumper, but in the scramble for the rebound, the T-Wolves Corey Brewer saved the ball back in bounds — right to Nazr Mohammed, who slipped in the game-winning dunk with 5 seconds left to finish off a 21 point/20 rebound night.
The Cats still had to sweat out the T-Wolves attempt at a game-winner, but played good defense and forced Wayne Ellington into a long, contested three that wasn’t really close.
Whew. AP story here, box score here, PopcornMachine.net GameFlow here.
If A Tree Falls In The Forest…
Seriously, if neither team televised the game (it was not even available on League Pass) and there wasn’t even any local radio (both local outlets were committed to other programming), did the game even happen? I tried to watch a few minutes on a bootleg internet stream, which seemed to be the T-Wolves in-arena feed. It was unbearable, so I bailed and just kept the ESPN GameCast up. This is what you get when the Cats play one of the Western Conference’s cellar dwellers on the same night of a UNC-Duke game.
Despite this nonsense, the game does count. Good thing too, as the Bobcats need every road win they can get. The Cats will take an uninspiring two-game win streak (close wins over the Wizards and T-Wolves) into the All-Star break.
Another Honor For Gerald
As Gerald Wallace prepares to take another stab at the Slam Dunk Contest and become the first Bobcat to appear in the All-Star Game, he has garnered still more recognition. Gerald has been named to the 2010-12 USA Basketball Mens National Team. 27 players in total were named to the pool that USA Basketball officials will further pick from to make up the squads for the FIBA World Championships in the summer of 2010 and the London Olympics in 2012.
Gerald will be a longshot to actually make the squad for either tournament — officials name plenty of extras to round out the training camp roster and in case of injuries and withdrawals for personal reasons. But this is nonetheless a huge honor for Crash. Here is his almost-embarrassingly vanilla ghost-written “blog” to tell you all about it.
All-Star Weekend
We’ll have plenty of coverage of the All-Star festivities here at the Baseline. Mike already has some ideas for Gerald in the dunk contest, which will be televised on TNT Saturday night. The actual All-Star game is set for Sunday evening at 7 PM ET, also on TNT.
After the break, the Bobcats will return to the court by hosting the dismal New Jersey Nets at the Cable Box on Tuesday night at 7 PM ET.
Ahh yes, that's what I was able to watch a few minutes of, though not through the official league pass broadband. Pretty cool that they did that for league pass broadband folks, though the T-Wolves arena feed was pretty limited.
Howl-o-meter?
Nazr Mohammed had 21 points and 20 rebounds! That's absolutely absurd.
I thought the T-Wolves had some bigs like Kevin Love and Al Jefferson. Are they no match for Mohammed? Really?
Wish I could have seen Ryan Hollins vs. Tyson Chandler.
Hey Jason – How about Curry's Triple Double?
Someone posted this on charlotteobserver.com that I felt was worth repeating:
"That ball would have bounced off of Tyson's hands."
Dude, I saw the game on league pass broadband. It was a feed from the arena scoreboard. For realz.
Hey guys, speaking of blackouts, I am currently studying abroad in South Africa and have really just been looking at 2 min highlight reels and box scores. What would you recommend as the best way to see some games?
Cam – You're right. That ball would have bounced off of Tyson's hands. Probably Emeka's too.
Nazr is having a career year, and I think he could be a solid value for a title contender. Hopefully, the Cats can get the most from him on the court or through a trade.
Mike,
There is definitely a lot of "Monta is holding Curry down" talk going on out here in Warrior territory.
And on a side note, did the same guy design both the Bobcats and the TWolves logo?
“OK, folks, we’re just going to shade in the right side of the face here…”
In my opinion, the Grizzlies have the best logo in sports and by far the best “animal looking straight at you.”
I would have to bet that the T-Wolves and the Cats recognized how nice that logo was and had to get one for themselves.
I’m sure it’s a graphic design regulation that the right side must be shaded for Western audiences.
Love the design nerd comments going on, but I’ll interrupt it to respond to jack b avove:
If you have $50, I’d just get league pass broadband for the rest of the season:
http://www.nba.com/leaguepass/online.html?cid=704
But if you’re a broke college student (ahh, memories) your alternative is to try to catch bootleg streams on sites like http://www.atdhe.net. Very unreliable and poor quality, obviously, but OK in a pinch.