The Charlotte Bobcats showed some signs of life in the first half, but only scored 16 points in the third quarter and couldn't recover, losing to the Boston Celtics, 104-80.
The Celtics play ugly. Every opponent should know that going in. Yet, the JordanCats again lost their poise and looked like they wanted to be anywhere other than on the court tonight. As noted in the preview, the Cs should be a good matchup for the Cats, but Charlotte's lost to them by 33 in the season opener, then by 18 in December, and now by 24. When Boris Diaw is your only effective shooter from the field, you don't deserve to win.
Game thread comments, lowlights, and highlights after the jump.
GAME THREAD COMMENTS
drapht00 -- I don’t mind crappy players that fill out a roster, even if they get playing time, as long as they play within themselves. I don’t understand who Stephen Graham thinks he is. He seems to think he actually has some 1 on 1 skills. He tries to cross people over and take it to the rim. Dude, you suck. Just play some defense and rebound.
WhatAboutBob_cats -- It's games like this that make me feel like I'll throw up in my mouth for hours afterward.
BAD
-- It was a perfect storm of suck tonight. The Cats shot 27-75 from the field, good for 36%, and 0-9 from three, which is -- you guessed it -- 0%. Meanwhile, the Celtics shot 54% from the field and 63% from three. Lovely lovely lovely.
-- What made this particularly painful was that neither Gerald Wallace nor Stephen Jackson played a quality game, and that made the Cats totally uncompetitive. Our two starting wings combined to go 5-15 from the field, pulling down 4 rebounds each. This might have been Crash's worst non-injury game.
-- For the love of basketball, please cut Stephen Graham and let Gerald Henderson and Derrick Brown play. It's incredibly disheartening to see an NBA non-entity like Graham, who's washed out multiple times before, getting minutes ahead of rookies who have proven in their limited minutes that they're at least his equal and probably his superior in every facet of the game. And the worst part is every other coach in the NBA agrees with me, as indicated by their actions. Rookies have been playing all season for every team that has them, yet our guys rot on the bench. Even if they were branded with the D-League's scarlet letter, at least they'd be playing, like Hasheem Thabeet, or Bill Walker (signs of life in New York), or a couple dozen other guys.
GOOD
-- Boris Diaw shot 4-6 from the field, for 10 points, and pulled down 5 rebounds. Bright spots are hard to find in a game like this.
-- The Cats shot 26-30 from the free throw line.
-- Gerald Henderson got 10:26 playing time! He shot 2-3! He had 4 rebounds! It was garbage time, and none of that is really indicative of much, but at least he played. Derrick Brown got 11:38 and didn't do well at all. But no matter. That they got the PT that their borderline abusive coach otherwise refuses to give them is a welcome sight.
-- Tyrus Thomas is still shooting too much, but he did score 15 points and pull down 10 rebounds. Granted, also, some of it was in garbage time. But there's something valuable there. Are we just being teased the way Chicago fans were teased all those years?