Bobcats Fall to Knicks 97-93

by David A. Arnott on Jan 7, 2010 9:59 PM EST

It was a sweet showcase for NBA fans who normally don't pay the Bobcats any mind. Win or lose, we knew by the middle of the second quarter both teams were determined to put on a show, on a night the Cats and Knicks played the only pro hoops game on the schedule. They went back and forth in front of a riled up crowd, but only one team could win, and New York finally came out on top, winning 97-93 (BOX SCORE).

Highlights and lowlights after the jump.

BAD

-- Though Stephen Jackson has been better than solid recently, he's also still a volume scorer who has to jack up shot after shot to get his points. It's somewhat more palatable to let him do that because he has such a varied skill set that it makes the opposition have to stretch to defend him, but scoring 26 points on 26(!) attempts from the field is too inefficient for my taste.

-- A similar criticism is appropriate for Raymond Felton, who shot 4-14 from the field, mitigated somewhat by 2-4 from three. Though his shooting percentage has been much better most of this season than it was in past seasons, that's partly a function of shooting less and partly of better shot selection. Again, he's not a good enough scorer to justify taking that many shots, especially when, as point guard, it comes at the expense of possessions in which he's facilitating the offense.

-- Hey, Stephen Graham was pointlessly in the game again while Gerald Henderson sat. I'd love to hear the reasoning for this ongoing travesty straight from the horse's mouth instead of reading endless speculation as to what kind of horrible information Graham has on Larry Brown that would be blackmail-worthy.

GOOD

-- This is why Gerald Wallace is an All Star this season. His scoring wasn't anything special, with 13 points on 12 attempts, but he was a major reason Danilo Gallinari struggled mightily until the final minutes of the fourth quarter, and he still led the team with 9 rebounds.

-- Welcome back, Boris Diaw. All we need from Boris is for him to play to his career averages. Scoring isn't as important as his assists, and a slight uptick in rebounding would be nice. I'd take 12 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds every night from him if I could.

Tweet Comment 10 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

To comment on Boris

His assists are what is needed. The ball movement that he brings to the team is what is so good about him. Speaking of ball movement, we had none towards the end of the game.

Lemonade was a popular drink and it still is.

by Ben Swanson on Jan 7, 2010 10:05 PM EST reply actions

Just one observation:

If you would have told me the Bobcats would shoot 12-26 from three and only have 7 turnovers to New York’s 18, I would have said “Hell yeah, I’ll take that”. But they lost.

by Stevarino on Jan 7, 2010 10:21 PM EST reply actions

Go figure...

but they looked Tired?
Flat?
Slow?

Very weird

by andrewlail76 on Jan 7, 2010 10:22 PM EST reply actions

That is weird

Minutes played vs NY

Wallace: 48
Diaw: 44
Jackson: 43.5
Felton: 40

by dudemanhey on Jan 8, 2010 4:10 PM EST up reply actions

Well

It’s not like there’s any other players that could have come off the bench…

Right?

by andrewlail76 on Jan 8, 2010 9:20 PM EST up reply actions

I thought New York did a great job of shutting down the paint. Gerald and Felton had a hard time getting anything at the rim. The Refs were alowing alot of contact in the paint. Wallace and Felton are used to getting calls the were not getting against NY. They forced us to shot jump shots for the most part. When the Knicks make the 3 they are very hard to beat. Gallanari was making some Crazy 3s. In my opinion we should not have switched off of Gallanari. By the way David Felton did a nice job Facilitating 9 assist even though he had his worst shooting game of the year.

by Bcat2.0 on Jan 8, 2010 1:54 PM EST reply actions

Additionally on Felton's shooting last night

By the way David, Felton did a nice job Facilitating 9 assist even though he had his worst shooting game of the year.

I recall multiple occasions during last nights game where Felton ended up taking a contested jumper because the ball got rotated back to him with the shot clock running out and he was forced to put it up — one time in particular, Diaw passed up a much better look at 3 from the right corner with ~4 seconds on the shot clock, and swung it to Felton up top who had no other choice but to shoot it.

Felton played solid last night, and in a contest more tightly officiated, his numbers would have looked better and the Bobcats would have had a much higher chance to win. I’m not claiming a conspiracy or even inconsistent officiating, but the ’Cats only shot 10 FT. However, the Knicks only shot 8 FT.

Like 2.0 said, the Cats were forced into jump shots for the most part. I would say officiating played a role in necessitating that as much as anything. Raymond, Gerald and the ’Cats in general do not tend to thrive in a jump shooting contest.

by dudemanhey on Jan 8, 2010 3:58 PM EST up reply actions

Though Felton, Murray and Jax

Did all hit some big 3’s last night. When Jax and Felton hit those two 3’s in back to back possessions to tie it up at 84, i thought they were gonna win it for sure! Damnation.

by dudemanhey on Jan 8, 2010 4:04 PM EST up reply actions

The officiating may not have been consistent

when compared to other games the Bobcats have played in the recent past. OTOH, it was consistent within the game itself as the roughly equal number of free throws per team would indicate. They may have called it closer than some of the other reffing teams we’ve seen on the court of late, but at least they called it equally tight against both squads.

Felton had a crappy game scoring-wise and it was indicative of the reason the Bobcats lost the game. It wasn’t because Felton went cold, it was because the Bobcats slid into their early season habit of standing around on offense. The Nicks play a sliding zone defense on the Cats and for some unknown reason every time the Bobcats face it they act like they’ve never seen one before. Instead of the sharp ball rotation and wing motion that’s the basic way of beating the zone, everybody stood around except the player with the ball. Because of this nobody was open for very long and the shot clock wound down. It’s what castrated the Bobcats offense early in the season and it’s what killed us last night. We played the latter part of the third quarter and the entire fourth like we had gone back in time 10 weeks. Felton’s shooting was crap last night because almost nobody else on the floor was doing the job they get paid for. The PG should be the last offensive option most of the time. Unfortunately the stagnated offensive flow meant that we had to go to that option far too many times. Felton is a player reborn this season, but he can’t be expected to carry an offense when he’s given less than 10 seconds and nobody to pass to.

by Ourdaywillcome on Jan 8, 2010 5:47 PM EST up reply actions