Dude…

We need an offense. If you wanna play the right way, that is. We need a roster shake up, methinks.

To use this for the next game’s pump up music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQ3IAriL0k

I love the old NBA on NBC theme song. It’s EPIC.

Once again we have the tale of two halves, only this time it was reversed. The Charlotte Bobcats showed up for the game tonight at 8:45 – but unfortunately, the tipoff came over an hour earlier.

I lived in Boston for 19 years and all but lived at the Boston Garden for 10 of them. In over 40 years of watching basketball – everything from the pros to rec leagues to pickup games – I have never seen a team play a worse half than the Charlotte Bobcats did tonight.

A few nights ago, David took a pretty healthy dump on Raymond Felton. I still believe he was mistaken, but in one sense he was dead-on right; Felton is not, and never will be, a go-to guy in the NBA. Unfortunately, he’s gotten it into his head that if he doesn’t force the ball to the hole, nobody else will. Thus far this season his teammates have done little to prove him wrong. The result is that he’s showing Michael Jordan’s heart, but against any team with something resembling a defense, he’s playing like Michael Jordan trying to hit an inside curve ball.

Felton did take a healthy right jab to the stitches tonight, but that doesn’t excuse his or the other guards’ inability to set up a play or make an effective pass for 18 seconds of a possession. Is it that the 3 front men aren’t getting open? If it were just Felton, I’d drop it all on his shoulders, but this has become an epidemic across the board.

Earlier today I said the Cats had the capacity to run away with this game. But I felt that if it happened it would be in the first half and they’d be able to coast to the final buzzer. No such luck. At one point tonight Del Curry said that Radmad looked like he was trying to shoot 3-pointers into a thimble. I couldn’t agree more.

We can rave about Wallace all we want, but the reality is that his offense is more from tenacity under the boards – putbacks etc – and at the free-throw line. It isn’t coming from set plays. He scored on a fast break tonight and even the commentators stated repeatedly that it was the ONLY easy basket he’s seen. If we don’t start getting into an offensive flow SOON we’ll be writing eulogies for him before the season is over. He’s killing himself out there and we’re profoundly fortunate he’s willing to do it. But he’s going to get hurt – and badly – if we don’t provide him with support.

Who would have thought we’d unload Okafor and IMPROVE so much in rebounding? Getting rid of him is looking more like a genius decision every game. The problem is, Tyson Chandler is just not getting the job done. Another night with single-digit scoring. He went an entire half without a foul but still managed to rack up 5 of them in the second half. Hooray, he’s getting a lot of minutes! But his production is simply deplorable.

Why in the name of God did Henderson only see 4 minutes on the court tonight? He has shown the potential of a possible rookie of the year candidate and he’s not being given nearly enough time to learn and grow in this league.

Yeah, I know it’s early in the season and I know we won. But, like most of you, I’m starting to get very frightened by an offense that backfires more than the customers at a bad Mexican restaurant. I think it’s premature to start screaming for roster changes, but if things don’t improve within the next couple of games, we’ll need to make changes or be doomed to write off this season entirely before the All Star balloting kicks in.

Next up is a home and away back to back. The Hawks and then the Bulls in Chicago.
If we play even one hapless quarter in the coming two games we’re going to lose both – and by an ENORMOUS margin. Assuming Tyson and company can’t get it together any better than they have thus far for a full 4 quarters, it’s going to be an ugly weekend. I think we have to brace ourselves for a double-digit loss on Friday, and something very close to it on Saturday in the Windy City. And that’s WITH Murray returning as hoped. Augustin and Wallace simply cannot continue to pull off miracles – especially with it becoming quickly apparent to the rest of the league that they are our only offensive threats. They’ll simply be surrounded by double teams and dump back out to Felton who will promptly feel forced to take a left handed 17 foot jump shot while in the midst of a cartwheel.

I love this team and I think the pieces are there. But unless they start to come together quickly, I think we’re all going to know what it’s like to be Cubs fans.