Right after the game Stephanie spoke with Crash. He said his ankle was hurting badly. “Right now its (the ankle) doing everything it can possibly do.” She then asked him if he was excited about AllStar weekend and he said, “I’m going to have to reevaluate the whole AllStar thing until I find out what’s happening with my ankle. I may have to change my mind on it.”

I’m sure it’s going to swell and get even more sore tonight, but hopefully it’s just a sprain and the day off will help it pass. Hold your breath y’all. I’m sure the team doctor is working on that ankle right now as if it’s the most important foot in Charlotee. As far as I’m concerned, it is.

The team was obviously exhausted from playing so much over the past 3 days (Like Dell said, it’s almost 3 games in 3 days with the early start). I hope Gerald can be healthy enough to be effective Wednesday. That’s a HUGE game against the Heat.

Well, although I’ve been arguably the most vocal in my injury concerns, there’s been no shortage of others here at ROF that have been equally worried. Today we got a good look at what we’ve been nervous about for quite a while and it’s even worse than I was afraid of.

We have us a phenomenal basketball team. We became good with the arrival of Stephen Jackson and in the weeks since we’ve grown steadily as player after player has found a place in the system and taken their games to new levels. Flip Murray and Boris Diaw are just the latest to discover ways to take their existing skills and adapt them in exciting ways. With the emergence of each player the team has grown steadily stronger. We were in desperate need of a solid backup at the 4. Along comes Derrick Brown, ready to come off the bench and at least keep our play at a competitive level. We need to trade for additional bench strength. Suddenly Flip comes to life and Diop starts playing some of the best ball of his career. It’s been amazing and it’s taken us from league joke to serious threat in very short order.

Our “someday” has become our “right now.”

And then, midway through the fourth quarter today, Gerald Wallace went down and didn’t get up.

Inside of 4 minutes our offense disappeared, our defense fell to shreds, and a huge double-digit blowout became a nail-biter against the easiest team we’ve faced on this homestand. But think about this for a moment. If LB had merely sat Wallace for a rest for the same amount of time Crash was out of the game would the entire team have fallen apart that badly? Am I the only one who saw the five Bobcats on the floor constantly casting nervous glances over at the bench to see how Crash was? Am I the only one who noticed the looks of fear?

It isn’t just the missing point production. It isn’t the presence under the boards. In sports, the illusion often becomes the reality. A hitter on a streak might wear the same underwear for weeks believing they’re the cause of the good luck. Fans of Bull Durham know full well that if the pitcher believes he’s having a bad day because he’s breathing out of the wrong eyelid then he’s by-God going to alter his breathing.

Well, in the case of the Charlotte Bobcats, the team believes that they are helpless without Gerald Wallace. He’s their leader, their rabbit’s foot, their very soul. When he fell, the Bobcats stopped believing in themselves. The only player that didn’t deflate like a leaky balloon was Raymond Felton.

It looks like Gerald’s injury isn’t terribly serious at this point, thank God. Because despite the skills the team possesses and displays night after night now, they believe that without Wallace they are helpless and it will be just as hard for them to change that belief as it would be for them to learn to breath out of an eyelid.

Our Cinderella season is that fragile and today 15 thousand fans at the arena – many new to the Bobcats bandwagon – could see it clearly. So could all of us here and in the swelling ranks of the television audience.

Let’s all pray to God above that Larry Brown, Michael Jordan, and Bob Johnson saw it too. Otherwise my friends, this very clear warning sign will be ignored and Crash, Jackson, Felton, and even Diaw will continue to face 40+ minutes a night until something serious DOES happen. It will mean the end of an amazing season and a dream of greatness will be gone before it can even be savored.

That way we’ll never find out if it’s hyperbole or not.

It didn’t take a genius psychiatrist to see that when Wallace went out the entire team (save Felton) collapsed and started playing a very different game. I guess the 3 games in 3 days things just coincidentally caught up with them at that exact moment. Stranger things have happened.

So we’ll just rely on the fact that Crash will play himself until he’s crippled. It makes much more sense than resting our starters wherever humanly possible. Tomato-tomahto.

I’ll stand by my observations and hope like hell we never have a more serious chance to find out if I’m correct or dramatic. I’ve been guilty of both of those things more than once in my life.