Andrew Bogut

Bobcats Comeback Bid Falls Short In Milwaukee

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Charlotte Bobcats @ Bucks, 2/20/10

A night after a rousing victory over the Cavaliers, the Bobcats fell on the road to the Milwaukee Bucks 93-88 on Saturday.  AP recap here, box score here.  The Cats have fallen back to .500 at 27-27.

Like they frequently do on the road, the Cats came out flat, falling behind by 10 early and 15 by half.  Behind a balanced attack of Brandon Jennings, Andrew Bogut and John Salmons, the Bucks eventually extended their lead to 20 early in the third quarter.  Raymond Felton and DJ Augustin both had trouble keeping the lightning-fast Jennings in front of them, while failing to make Jennings play much defense by shooting a combined 3-16 FG.

Midway through the third quarter the Bobcats began chipping away behind Stephen Jackson, who would finish with a game-high 35 points on 14-25 FG.  Tyrus Thomas was again a force inside, finishing with 11 rebounds and 4 blocks.

The Cats would eventually cut the Bucks lead down to three at 86-83 with 2:20 left on a Jackson layup, but couldn’t get any closer.  After a Carlos Delfino free throw increased the Bucks lead to four, Steven Jackson committed a completely unforced turnover to end the Cats comeback bid.  Jackson simply lost his dribble, giving John Salmons the easiest steal he’s ever had.  Worse yet, Jack grabbed Salmons for a clear path foul, which really ended things.

Bric-A-Brac

  • This was a particularly bad night for the Bobcats not to show up on the road.  The race for the 6-8th playoff spots in the East is between the Bulls, Heat, Bobcats and Bucks.  After the loss, the Bobcats are clinging to the 8th spot, just one game ahead of the Bucks.
  • Additionally, with the loss, the Cats lost the chance to hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Bucks.  The Bucks now lead the season series 2-1 with one game (April 4th) to go.
  • Nazr looks really limited by his back.  We really could have used his low-post scoring to weather the cold start.  Maybe he can get his hands on some medicinal marijuana out in LA to loosen it up.
  • Next game is Monday night against the Clippers, 10:30 PM ET start.

-Dr. E

Wallace Leads Bobcats To Another Home Win

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Charlotte Bobcats vs Bucks, 12/28/09

Seriously, I’m Running Out Of Angles Here

The Charlotte Bobcats get another solid win on the home floor Monday night, 94-84 over the struggling Milwaukee Bucks.  AP recap here, box score here.  The Cats are now 11-4 at home; but their dismal 1-13 road record has them at just 12-17 overall.  The Bucks have now lost 14 out of their last 18 to drop to a matching 12-17.

The Cats took control in the second quarter with excellent defense and cruised to a 22 point halftime lead.  Scott Skiles, unhappy with the Bucks’ first half performance, benched starters Andrew Bogut and Michael Redd in the second half.  Redd, in particular, looked awful.  I have to wonder if he’s done.  In looking at his game log, I’m surprised to see he went for 32 points against the Wiz last week — he looks like he’d have trouble mustering double digits.

The Bucks made a bit of a run in the fourth quarter but never seriously threatened.  The Cats outshot and outrebounded the Bucks by just a bit, and kept their turnovers a bit lower than the season average.

The Cats were led by Gerald Wallace, who finished with 21 points (7-13 FG, 7-9 FT), 14 rebounds and 4 assists.  Pretty much your standard Gerald Wallace game.  Raymond Felton continued his solid play with 11 points (4-6 FG, 2-3 3PT), 6 rebounds, 3 assists and no turnovers.  Steven Graham had a nice game off the bench with 11 points in 18 minutes.

Gana Diop deserves special mention.  With Tyson Chandler out, Nazr Mohammed deservedly got the starting nod again.  However, Nazr had to sit early with two fouls and Gana was pressed into early and extensive action.  Gana acquitted himself well with 7 points on 3-4 FG with 3 rebounds and a block in 12 minutes.  He even hit a free throw.  Of course, he airballed another — that’s our Gana!

Tidbits

  • The dichotomy between the Bobcats’ home and road records continues to mystify.  At 11-4, the home record is better than Dallas or Boston’s.  But the 1-13 road record is only bested (worsted?) by the abysmal New Jersey Nets.  The only other team with a similar split is New Orleans: the Hornets are 11-3 at home, 2-12 on the road.
  • Speaking of dichotomies: how is it that Brandon Jennings couldn’t get any playing time last year in Italy, yet he is essentially running a decent NBA team this year?  Even though he’s hit the rookie wall pretty hard and a bit early, dude is still a player.
  • Luke Ridnour and Micheal Cera — separated at birth?
  • Gerald Henderson really should be sent to the D-League to get some regular playing time.  He’s not getting any regular minutes now, and when he does get some garbage time, really seems to be pressing.
  • Next game is Wednesday night in Toronto, 7 PM ET start.  This would seem like a good opportunity for the Cats to get a road win, as the Bobcats manhandled the soft Raptors in their first meeting back in October.  However, that game was in Charlotte, and the Raptors are on a season-best 4 game win streak right now.

-Dr. E

Bucks Take Down Bobcats at Home to Go 7-3

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Bucks Charlotte Bobcats @ Milwaukee 11/20/09

Bucks play another outstanding game tonight as they turn away a directionless Bobcats team 95-88 Friday night at the Huey.  The Bucks are now 7-3 for the season (good for 5th in the conference) and 6-1 at home.  Box score here.  AP recap here.

1. Be Thankful for Brandon Jennings

A Karmic Shift has occurred.  Not sure how it happened but after suffering through years of lackluster effort and constant rebuilding, the Bucks have finally seemed to put it all together.  We here at Bucks Baseline have been through it all, the injuries, ownership hijinks, salary dumps, coaching changes, pissing off the Chinese government, you name it but on June 25th, when the Bucks selected Brandon Jennings with the 10th overall selection, our luck finally changed.

Just six days ago, on November 14th, Jennings officially started “beasting it” (as our friend “eddie” likes to say, lol!) by dropping 55 points on the Golden State Warriors.  Brandon came into tonight’s game with the Bobcats ranked 9th overall in the NBA in scoring and bettered his 24.8ppg average by dropping 29 on the Bobcats (boo-yeah!) on 12-23 shooting from the field.  Jennings looks so smooth and natural out there scoring easy basket after easy basket.  It seems that his quickness, combined with his left-handed shot and total belief in his game just throws opposing defenders off.  No part of Brandon realizes that he shouldn’t be this good this fast!  I think he’s an All-Star this season for sure.  Basically, he’s the complete and total opposite of Charlotte’s PG combo (Raymond Felton/D.J. Augustin) as those two guys look completely mechanical and have no confidence in their jump shots.  I think maybe Larry Brown has been over-coaching them.  Glad I’m not a Bobcats fan!  It would be tough to watch those two guys try to lead a team for 82 games, that’s for sure.  In fact, maybe we should call them “Matthew” and “Fox” because they’re totally LOST (LMAO!).

2. Future’s So Bright We Gotta Wear Shades

Did I mention that the Bucks took out the Bobcats tonight despite playing with three of our starters?  That’s right, Andrew Bogut (16ppg/9rpg), Michael Redd (career 20ppg) and our best defender, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, all sat out with minor injuries.  Can you imagine how easily we would have dismantled this lottery bound Bobcats team if we had our full roster?  What’s best is that during the 3rd quarter (when the Bucks stretched out to a 16 point lead) I had a little time to compare salary cap situations between the two teams.  Did anybody realize that the Bobcats are basically capped out until 2013?  Ha!  Hey MJ, Isiah is on the phone, he wants his cap management strategy back (lol)!   The best part is is that the Bobcats don’t even have any All-Stars or potential All-Stars on that expensive roster.  Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw and Gerald Wallace are nice veteran complementary players but neither of those guys will ever sniff an All-Star game before 20-year-old Brandon Jennings does.  Oh, and those three Bobcats players are owed a combined $90 million over the next four seasons (YOWSA!) while 25ppg scorer Jennings is only owed $10 million.  Just shows you that the teams that drafts well will always beat the ones who don’t.  And yeah, MJ, at least Isiah knew how to draft (HA!).

Our other young players played very well tonight as well.  Hakim Warrick came off the bench tonight to play 31 minutes in Bogut’s absence and scored 16pts and grabbed 9 boards.  He looked a little bit like a younger, more energetic, $3 million a year Gerald Wallace.  Our 2nd round selection, PG Jodie Meeks played some nice minutes in relief of Ridnour and Jennings by dropping 8pts (7 more points than that combined outputs of Bobcat lottery picks Gerald Henderson and Augustin).

Have to say that the Bucks immediate future (with the return of Redd/Bogut/a Moute) and long-term future (just $19 million in guaranteed salaries as of July 2011) look amazing.  Timbuk3 said it best: The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades).

3. Tale of Two Coaches

Scott Skiles and Bobcats coach Larry Brown share a lot of similarities.  They’re both former PGs who are known for their emphasis on defense.  Both have been accused of over-coaching in the past.  This season, Skiles seems to have turned it around though as the entire Bucks team looks loose and the offense looks as liquid-fluid as we’ve ever seen.  The Bobcats meanwhile look like they are thinking through every possession.  You would have thought that Charlotte would be less mechanical after trading Mr. Roboto himself, Emeka Okafor, during the summer but they look even more unnatural this season without him.  Sucks to be them.

IN CONCLUSION

The Bucks look like a guaranteed Playoff team come this Spring and when Bogut & Redd come back into the lineup to join the League’s newest Superstar Brandon Jennings, LOOK OUT!  Everybody have a great weekend, enjoy the win and be thankful that you aren’t a Charlotte Bobcat fan.

Peace Out.

C.S. Adams