Bucks come to town, go out the way of the Knicks before them

The Charlotte Bobcats have beaten the Milwaukee Bucks 87-86. The beating, the person doing the beating was limited to one man: Gerald Henderson, Jr. He scored the Bobcats final 7 points, including the 2 that put them ahead. He secured the loose ball after a wide-open shot by Brandon Jennings and called time out with 11 seconds remaining.

It certainly wasn’t pretty.  These two teams rank last in the league in points per game.  You wouldn’t think it’d be an instant classic, prepped for ESPN Classic or whatever they’re calling it.  Didn’t they change the name of it, sort of like they changed the Senior PGA Tour to the “Champions” Tour.  You know you don’t have to be a Champion to get on that tour right?  It’s a sham.

This afternoon we found out that Joel Przybilla might be out for the rest of the season.  We also learned that Kwame Brown was headed back to Georgia and would miss the game.  Thoughts and prayers go out to him and his whole family especially his daughter.  NBA players don’t go home because their kid has a runny nose, so we hope for the best for him and his child.  Tyrus Thomas missed the last game with sore ribs, like sore, sore.  I heard the thud, he deserved to rest, probably anything to help him be able to breathe without wincing.  But he’d give it a go tonight.  Which is good because I don’t know what we’d see or be able to deal with if Najera got the call at center tonight.  Besides, Eduardo Najera had been injured against Boston (or NY, they’re starting to blend together) and we weren’t sure if he was at 100% or close to it.  Stephen Jackson was not feeling well this morning and sat out shoot around, to add to the laundry list of injuries.

It’s getting a little ridiculous.  If this were the NFL we’d be begging for a bye week.  This, however, is the NBA and the show has to go on.  Size was definitely an issue.  Tyrus Thomas at “center” with Boris Diaw doing most of the defensive work against Andrew Bogut, who is a legit, serious big man in the East. He leads the league in blocks and does well on the boards.  He’s their third leading scorer at 12.8 per game, but tonight, he almost had double that at halftime.  Their game plan was solid, which took advantage of the lack of size for the Bobcats and it led to 18 in the first quarter for the Austrailian.

Neither team pulled away.  It was back and forth and close.  The really interesting thing, when you see two teams, don’t want to call them “bad” teams, but one in flux and the other ravaged by injuries and would be in flux if its hand weren’t forced; the interesting thing is watching two teams flounder like those fish that hop in boats and just find and poke and land into things but they’re still just floppin around.

It flopped like that around 2-8 point leads either way, with the Bobcats answering when the Bucks made it look nice.  It was like that too, the Bobcats would throw up bricks and Jennings would drive to the left and put it up and in.  He did this over and over and over.  The Bobcats point guards weren’t able to keep up and there was no help defense, and if he missed one, there was Bogut or Mbah a Moute or Gooden for an offensive rebound.  The size was still an issue.  But as I said, the Bobcats just flopped and floundered on back at them with, as seen against New York, balanced scoring.  5 guys in double figures for the ‘Cats tonight, led by Stephen Jackson with 18 and Gerald Henderson with 16.

The size was such an issue, when any Bobcats player attempted to drive to the basket, they were met with at least 2 but often 3 Bucks bigs.  This put a hurting on some of the smaller guys, including DJ Augustin and Shaun Livingston.  Each left the game after falling around the basket.  DJA initially knocked knees with someone or otherwise injured the outside (non-ligament) area of his knee.  Then, late in the game, on a hop-step through the lane, he rolled his ankle a bit, at least straining it.  He left, would not return.  Shaun Livingston entered in his relief, he drove baseline and as Drew Gooden went up and blocked his shot, the rest of his upper half came down across the upper half of Livingston, turning him parallel to the floor and about 4 feet straight up.  He landed straight on that lower back/tailbone area and actually got up and shot his free throws, stayed in for at least a play and finally left the game on the next dead ball.  It wasn’t a flagrant foul, just a hard foul.  Not a malicious hard foul.  I’d describe it as Gooden being in the league 9 years, being 6’10” and listed at 230 (more like 250-260, he looks girthy), being sloppy and letting the rest of his body get away for him as he fought to get up high enough to block a shot.  It wasn’t dirty, just sloppy, if that makes sense.

But, with about half the active roster still available, the Bobcats pushed through to the final stanza and on to the end, down most of the way.  The Bucks, anything but balanced in their scoring, basically got all their points in the 2nd half out of 3 guys, Mbah a Moute, Jennings and Bogut.  With around 7 minutes left, it was only those 3 who had scored at all in the second half.  Carlos Delfino made a three and Gooden tipped in a miss, then Delfino made it to the line and connected on two shots, but that was it.  After the Milwaukee version of the “big” 3 quit scoring, Delfino and Gooden’s attempts to stem the tide, the Bobcats went on a 15 to 7 run to close the game.  If you want to look at it this way, it was the Bobcats/Bucks through 44 minutes, the score was 80-86, Milwaukee, and then in the final 4 minutes:  ALL GERALD HENDERSON.

I’m very impressed with the young man out of Duke, drafted last season at #12, used sparingly by Larry Brown; turned into a sixth man under Paul Silas; a contributor by his own will; and finally, turned into a starter and a team leader by the trade of Gerald Wallace.  He has made himself into quite the player.  I sat beside a guy the other night that said “Oh, well definitely, Hendo is the next big name for the Bobcats.  He’ll be the next All-Star off this team.”  Not sure if I completely agree, but I didn’t disagree enough to argue.  As I said, in this game, he was the difference in the final 4 minutes.  His scoring, with assists from Garrett Temple, fresh off his 2nd 10 day contract; the loose ball he corralled, that was the difference.  That, and the inability of the Bucks to make a shot.

The final play was an inbounds off Hendo’s time out.  The Bobcats drew up and inbounds play with Diaw as the trigger man.  He couldn’t find an open man so, time out again.  After this one, there were no time outs left so Diaw waited and waited and waited then finally threw the ball towards a scrum, it bounced out to Jennings, he dribbled around, missed a layup, Dooling rebounds, kicks it to Jennings for a wide open shot, he missed it, Delfinio with a tip in/put back attempt, it rims out and the ball falls to a Bobcat, the horn sounds and the Bobcats sneek away.

Sadly, the Pacers beat Boston to remain a game plus the tiebreak ahead of the Bobcats for that final position in the Eastern Conference Playoffs.  It might happen, maybe one night the Bobcats will win and the Pacers will lose, but I like the fact the Bobcats have 2 more games left at this point.  Sort of like they can put up a number and the Bobcats can go after it, like the old Tiger Woods coming from behind in red on a Sunday.  More on all of this tomorrow!