Stephen Jackson was frustrated all night. His shots weren't falling, and it seemed as if he felt the referees weren't helping him out either. Jax gathered a technical foul late in the second quarter, but that failed to spark the team, and the Bobcats simply couldn't overcome the hole they'd dug, even with a frantic fourth quarter comeback, losing to the Indiana Pacers 99-94.
Troy Murphy had a huge game for the Pacers, double-double machine that he is, and several supporting players stepped up in limited minutes, including Roy Hibbert, Dahntay Jones, and A.J. Price, who each shot over 66% from the field.
Game thread comments, lowlights, and highlights after the jump.
GAME THREAD COMMENTS
Ourdaywillcome -- There’s no energy. They’re playing listless. If the Pacers actually come out of their coma for a minute or two they’ll be a problem unless we step it up.
Stevarino -- You know it's getting bad when Dell Curry is doing impressions of Charles Barkley.
BAD
-- Stephen Jackson scored 20 points on 8-22 shooting. For the first three and a half quarters, he couldn't do much right, but he made up a lot of ground in the fourth quarter. He was solid otherwise, with 9 rebounds and 7 assists, but all those misses early in the game represent a lot of lost possessions that were a major part of putting the Cats down.
-- D.J. Augustin exemplified an extreme of the efficiency aesthetic on offense tonight -- a bad extreme. At a certain point, doing little of note in a game means that you're not directly to blame for any negative play. But at a point similar to one, doing little of note is indicative of basketball nihilism, which is, in a sense, even worse than attempting and failing, because playing four on five is always a losing proposition. Augustin shot 0-1 in 19 minutes, with 1 assist. Really? Come on. That's deferring responsibility for the offense, not creating it.
-- For his part, Raymond Felton shot 3-9 from the field for 7 points and had dished only 3 assists until the furious fourth quarter flurry. Gotta find that balance, again, between trying to be a pure creator and trying to be a one-man offense, where he's facilitating the offense.
-- I'm grateful that Gerald Henderson is getting valuable playing time, Larry. Please don't forget that Derrick Brown was pretty damn impressive earlier this year.
-- The free throw shooting was poor, at 25-36, 69%.
GOOD
-- Stephen Graham scored a career-high 19 points on 8-10 shooting. The man is on a two-game tear! That said, Henderson and Brown still deserve the PT going to him.
-- Boris Diaw has been quietly doing solid work in recent weeks, combining quality with quantity and a greater willingness to do dirty work down low. Tonight, he scored 20 points on 7-10 shooting.