Bobcats win their first game of the season Wednesday night in New Jersey 85-83. Cats improve to 1-3, Nets drop to 2-2.
OBSERVATIONS:
- Boris Diaw puts the knife and fork down long enough to play his first meaningful game of the season, dropping 24 points on 10-18 shooting, including a major momentum changing three pointer late. Nice to see Boris focused and motivated. Look forward to seeing it again in a few weeks.
- Bobcats come back from 10 down with a little more than 6 minutes to go in this one, looking like a true veteran squad in the process. They didn’t lose their focus and concentrated on finding good shots and getting to the line (23 to 15 advantage from the stripe) in order to negate the clock. Nazr Mohammed, who picked up 3 fouls in the game’s first four minutes and looked atrocious in the first half, contributed six points late and played Brook Lopez as well as he ever has.
- TURNOVER BONANZA! As is their stock in trade, Charlotte continues to both turn the ball over and force ’em from the other end. 16 a piece in this game for a whopping total of 32. Ugh. When the Bobcats come to town, hide the women and children.
- Both Geralds were beat up in this game. Wallace was lost for most of the third quarter with an ankle injury but returned in the fourth. Henderson took a one two punch from Anthony Morrow in the third, sending him to the bench for good with a busted nose.
- DJ wasn’t terrible (5pts/7asts/0TOs) but he’ll never be Brook Lopez. I wonder what goes through Larry Brown’s mind when he faces off against the multi-dimensional big man four times a year, knowing that he passed on the elite center out of Stanford three drafts ago. Brook dropped 17 points on the Bobcats and sent back 5 shots on the other end. As well as Nazr closed the half and as well as Gana Diop defended in relief, Charlotte continues to get dismantled by opposing centers.
- Derrick Favors = Beast*. Once he figures out how to play the NBA game, he’s gonna be something special, he’s just a physical specimen at the four spot. I can see how NJ has been reticent to include him in any Carmelo trade. Favors has to the potential to be very good.
*©2008-reggie-productions. all rights reserved. - For all the Devin Harris trade hype (I’d gladly welcome him to CLT if a deal transpires), watching him it makes sense why Jersey would consider trading him. There’s something about Harris’s body language and his relationship to his teammates on the court that makes me think he’s not a natural born leader. Thoughts?
- Sherron Collins Sighting! I tweeted that he looks like a gene splice lab creation of Raymond Felton and DJ Augustin, @baselinebuzz followers were quick to add Boris Diaw and/or Sean May’s Pillsbury DNA to that mix. Indeed.
Crash’s ability to get to the line and convert is invaluable. Wallace earned eight freebies and made them all, going for 20 points, 11 boards in just 35 minutes. Bobcats had the best player on the court tonight and won for it.
Until Next Time, Enjoy the Win Bobcats Fans…
-ASChin
A part of me thinks that turnovers are preferable to free throws but I’ve seen both primarily in women’s bball, and its not pretty. Girlfriend be damned.
Anyone notice that twc sportsouth HD channel is based on Atlanta’s programming? ie hawks games when the cats r playing. Progress overall I guess.
Dj really struggles against taller guards. In terms of making or bothering shots. I personally favor taller pgs but guys like bogues, and boykins even, just make you wait a little longer than one should to see production. No, Djs not 5’9″ but you get my point. Ultimately, the starters saved us and the bench nearly lost it for us.
Also, these turnovers were mostly throwing the ball out of bounds, traveling, offensive fouls. So, the best that’s said for that is the defense gets set. Or am I stretching.
Tyrus Thomas and Derrick Brown looked pretty bad during the second quarter, but I guess the whole team did during that stretch.
Stephen Jackson continues to move slowly, but it was nice to see him bring his game for the last 6 minutes.
Nice to get a win, but I am still worried about LB’s rotation decisions. I understand Crash won us that game and without him returing, we would have lost. However, getting injured and then LB putting him back in for 35 minutes is too much. Give Derrick Brown or Tyrus some more time. Maybe we would have lost the game last night if we played those guys more and Gerald less, but it’ll be good in the long run in the course of the season. You’re making your young players more comfortable with playing more time in close games. It’s an important part of their development. And giving Gerald more rest is necessary to keep him around for as many of the 82 games as possible. It’s just mind-boggling to me.
So bleacher report thinking a swap of najera for Jason thompson and George hill for sherron commons and derrick brown. I don’t see any real downsides. Except that it’s not likely. Yes we trade a ton but rarely a sensible trade.
Bleacher Report is a collection of know-nothing hacks that think they can be sportswriters.
Just thought I’d put that out there.
I’m really excited to see Boris outside of the arc. The power forward role he was playing last season was just not working.
I’m sure he likes it better as well…he minimizes the amount of cardiovascular activity required to get back on D.
POTENTIAL TRADE!?!?!?!?
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/21203/bulls-hold-off-signing-third-pg
MIGHT BE GETTING JAMES JOHNSON!
Spot on with this write-up,