Bobcats Hold Off Bulls 113-108

He’s a draft bust. If Flip Murray and Stephen Graham are better. He needs to be traded away asap. cough, cough

and im just streaming my thoughts together:

Tyson may very well be an achilles heel (no pun intended) to this team. i wouldnt say that he slows down the offense, but he does create turnovers way too often for a C. im not saying we should trade him (and if we could for a cheep back up PF and maybe cash—if not, a pick?), but he should probably get lesser minutes than usual. lets face it, as well as he may play defense, hes not exactly a force.
my high school—hell, i have better post offense than Tyson. lets hope he finds this out.

i know im going to get heat over this, but knowing that both DJ and Raymond most likely be here next year, im leaning towards the “keep Raymond IF he doesnt want 9mill” side. i know very well what DJ is capable of doing, yet, hes not doing that this year. i know Raymond has his dinks, but he is a better facilitator and he does give us size defensively. the new-found combination of Crash ’n Jax (which to me sounds like a ridiculously amazing cereal) has sparked a Felton renaissance. it really keeps him inside of his field of play (skill-wise)

dont trade Boris unless we are receiving cap relief. Crash ’n Jax are now the pillars of our offense and even though he may no longer produce as well as he has in the past, he does stretch the court offensively. i wouldnt expect Boris to average 10 and 5, but i will take 6 and 5 assists. he keeps the ball moving and—on good nights—he doesnt turn it over that much.

ill stop now. keep up the work cats!

there is potential to build a decent winning streak in the next week or so. We have to go play the Knicks in NY, but I feel like we can beat them. After that, we’ve got several home games. This month is still a tough schedule for us though.

Commenting that the Bobcats were lucky to win this one states both the obvious and the subtle. Yes, it took a pair of missed three pointers to salvage this one and it should have been a foregone conclusion well before that. Anyone watching could see that. Hell, Ray Charles would have seen it. But those of us that “chat” here during the games are used to something very different. The biggest frustration, game after game, has been seeing the Bobcats hang in the thick of the game until the closing seconds only to find a way to lose in the last minute or so every… single… time. We’ve seen just about every combination of “almost” that this game provides. We’ve led the entire way only to get caught at the wire; we’ve fought from behind only to lose in the closing seconds… you get the idea. You can chalk last night’s win up to luck and you’d be right, but there was something different going on. Instead of a deer-in-the-headlights expression on the faces of the Bobcats last night, the five faces on the court wore looks of determination. Instead of the defeated “oh God here we go again” body language on the bench, there was keen interest and anticipation. As I said, it’s a subtle change, but it’s also significant. The Charlotte Bobcats are beginning to believe in themselves. They are starting to look at how they are going to pull out the win instead of assuming a bad bounce, iffy call, or turnover is going to bring them the latest loss.

It shows the most in the play of Flip Murray this week. He’s always been streaky but it seems to me it’s been because he doesn’t seem to be able to “get it up” for every game. It’s one thing for you and I to wake up in the morning and drag into work “just not feeling it” that day. We go through the motions, work the eight and hit the gate. But we expect more out of pro ballers and music stars. They get elite pay, only work part of the year, and live lives we can only fantasize about. In return we expect them to show up hungry and eager to give their all, without exception. Flip’s play has been inspired this week. I don’t think it’s because of any other reason except that winning is fun. The team is starting to get respect on a national level now and some of our players that have been mailing it in are starting to pick up a spring in the step and give a little more effort. Last week, in talking about this frustration I pointed out that the differential between wins and losses for the Bobcats was less than 1 point per game. We were that close. The small change of attitude that Flip and others are showing is a subtle thing. But it has been enough to start turning losses into wins. It’s started making US the lucky team instead of the ones leaving the court with hangdog looks on our faces. We now have signs of life from DJ, Flip is actually getting into position for more open looks, and Diop is taking shots without hesitating. Sadly, in the midst of this we have Tyson Chandler looking far too comfortable sitting behind the bench in a walking cast two weeks into what was supposed to be a one week injury. At no time does the camera catching him with an eager look on his face or anything resembling an urge to suit up. He reminds me of Corbin Bernsen’s character in Major League. Maybe LB needs to take a leak on Chandler’s contract or something. If he doesn’t want to do that, I’m willing to volunteer. The line forms to the right guys.

I really think it’s time to consider packaging Henderson up and seeing what, if anything, we can get for him. In this league a rookie only gets two seasons to prove his value. After that it’s option time. Henderson isn’t getting anything near enough minutes thus far to either show his potential or buld his skills. The only reason I can think of is that LB is seeing something in practice that he really doesn’t like. Brown has a tendency to underutilize rookies, but even Derrick Brown is getting enough minutes (barely) to excite the fans about his play. There’s something about Gerald Henderson specifically that we don’t know about. It could be an unfair bias on Brown’s part, but it’s looking more and more as if Gerald is simply going to be a write-off. I think it’s time to accept the fact that for some unknown reason we are the only team in the NBA with a potentially gifted rookie as our 12th man.

Nonetheless, if we can get the win we should in NY tomorrow night we’ll match our longest streak of the season and come home for a stretch that has the potential to take us over .500 for the first time this season. The schedule lines up so that if we play well and win the majority of games on the homestand we could be as high as the 5 seed before we hit “THE WALL” out West at the start of February. Let’s enjoy the ride while the engine’s running smooth. I think we all know that there’s more frustration on the long horizon and the looks of defeat and desperation we’re so used to seeing will return. Right now it’s fun being a Bobcats fan. It’s far from “cool” yet, but at least people aren’t laughing quite so hard. This is a good thing.

But that guy has got to put on some muscle and gain some lower body strength. He is a defensive liability against pretty much any PG who hits the weights. I don’t expect him to turn into a Pocket Hercules overnight, but he has to at least be able to slow bigger guards down a little. Rose was giving DJ the drugs last night.

Michael Irr is the Bobcats’ Strength and Conditioning coach. I would really like to know what he does to help Ajinca and DJ.