Ben Gordon Reaches 10K Point Plateau in Loss to the Trailblazers
This dunk was incredible...but this picture...well...Byron, we're going to have to work on your "awesome dunk" face.
Well, tonight had its fair share of ups and downs. There were great dunks, great plays, and big leads. There were also turnovers, missed foul shots, poor officiating, and squandered leads. The result was the Bobcats netting their 4th straight loss against a very beatable Portland Trailblazers. The final score was Portland 118 and Charlotte with 112.. Are you curious about this game? Read on to get my take on what went wrong.
This should have been a winnable game for the Bobcats. At many points, the game looked so much like it was in the bag. Having leads as big as 16 points…then being forced into overtime…and losing to a team with as much if not more youth than ours? I think the Panthers might have rubbed off on us and we are forgetting how to close out games.
In the 4th quarter and overtime we were outscored 48 – 37 all total. This is totally unacceptable. There has to be defensive stops. We even had players getting some rest tonight and we couldn’t get the job done. I’m sure that Coach Dunlap will make a reference to the 15 turnovers that we had, and hopefully we can learn how to not do that.
Ben Gordon had a hot hand. He was 8-12 from the 3-point line. The problem, though, became that the team just kept looking to him to score the points at the end. Portland knew that and they guarded him heavily. The result could have been that the rest of the team had grown cold. I really don’t know how else to put it. There were several non-calls in the paint on drives to the basket, but you can’t use that as an excuse. You have to figure out a different method of attack and approach it from another angle.
As you read some of the box scores below of our Bobcats, you’ll see what I mean in terms of counting on too few to win a basketball game. You need multiple guys scoring in high double figures, and you need to be able to stop runs. We didn’t have much of either tonight. Hopefully this will spark the Bobcats to go at it even harder against the Knicks on Wednesday. The last Bobcats-Knicks game I attended was one in which I sat with the Cats Crazies and got heckled almost the entire game by a drunk Knicks fan. I want nothing more for the Knicks to come to town and get beat. They are one of those teams that Comes to Charlotte, and the arena has more Knicks fans than Bobcats fans. I’m hoping that this isn’t the case, but if it is, I’m hoping that I get to see all of those Knicks fans leaving with their heads hung low in defeat.
Obviously I have to give the Trade Street Post Game-Breaker award to Ben Gordon. Breaking that 10,000-point plateau is a major accomplishment in one’s career. His 29 points really kept us in the game.
Here are some stats from tonight’s game:
Gordon = 29pts / 5 assists / 1 steal / 3rebs
Walker = 22pts / 7 assists / 3 steals / 4rebs
Mullens = 12pts / 12rebs / 1 assist / 1 steal / 1 block
Taylor = 11pts / 4rebs / 2 assists / 1 steal / 0 turnovers
Sessions = 11pts / 9 assists / 4rebs
Kidd-Gilchrist = 8pts / 3rebs / 3 assists / 2 blocks
Haywood = 8pts / 5rebs / 2 blocks / 1 assist
The one other silver lining that we got tonight was the return of Gerald Henderson. He played limited minutes off of the bench. He wasn’t super productive tonight (5pts / 1reb), but he will need time to get back up to full speed. Welcome back Hendo. It’s time for you to start having some fun with these young Charlotte Bobcats.
I’m an animal lover. As I was browsing to find a headline picture for tonight’s game I saw this video at the www.bobcats.com site, and I just had to share it. It would appear that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist wanted a puppy, so he went to the Humane Society to adopt one. Check out the video. Very Cool! I have 3 cats…1 was a humane society adoption, one was an animal shelter rescue, and one was a stray, so it really warms my heart to see MKG adopting a pet.
http://www.nba.com/bobcats/video/2012/12/03/121121MKGPuppyFINALm4v-2313489
