GT: Bobcats Vs Lakers Sat Dec 14 7PM EST

[catch20two]

I love the dynamic that Jefferson brings to our team but I hate him in the crunch. That's when all of his flaws multiply. Black hole? Check. Bad defense? Check. Bad IQ? Check. Lazy? Check.

[Amateur Wannabe]

Charlotte still can't hit threes. 2 threes for a game (both by one player) is ridiculous at modern NBA level. In the end, even the difference was 3 points lol. That's what separates Cats from being a really serious team. Now it's borderline serious, luckily East is so damn weak that even while not being playoffs good (and Cats aren't really a playoffs team) it's possible to get there.

[Eoghan]

Thoughts and observations:

I hate Big Al, seriously I do. You weigh like 290 **** pounds, move somebody and draw fouls instead of ballerina spinning around people and settling for jumpshots.

Cody Laettner had a nice game. Totally got hosed by the refs on that chase down block but that's okay, as long as he keeps doing stuff like that the refs will learn.

Taylor is pretty decent when he's got a mean streak.

Hendo needs to go. Replace with 3pt shooting asap.

Great game by Kemba, very efficient but just couldn't keep it up. Put a deadly shooter alongside him and let's see what happens.

Gordon is not overtly terrible anymore. That's kind of nice.

[Robot Rock]

I was at this game, surrounded by some obnoxious Lakers fans whom I was quite sarcastic to in return.

Proud of the guys' effort tonight, they played very hard against a team who had a lot of help from the officials.

Kemba was once again phenomenal. 24 points, on 10-of-13 shooting with 8 assists, is beyond excellent.

Too bad half this board doesn't get that, and would wet its pants if other players had that type of performance. I've kind of gotten used to the hate he gets on here. It's a shame there are so many fans who think mediocre scrubs are better than him, but what can you do? No one can please everyone. I also love how some say he's not a top-10 PG "because he doesn't do this every night."

No PG does that every night. But oh well. Congrats to Kemba, proud of his results which were great, and props to the entire Charlotte team. We very nearly stole one from the Lakers, only to have the refs/Clifford/Jefferson give it away.

Still a fun game to attend.

[JDR720]

we need to sign as many shooters as possible in the off season 2 threes in a game is horrible, even our 3pt shooter (BG) isn't making....or shooting threes

[KembaWalker]

I was at this game, surrounded by some obnoxious Lakers fans whom I was quite sarcastic to in return.

Proud of the guys' effort tonight, they played very hard against a team who had a lot of help from the officials.

Kemba was once again phenomenal. 24 points, on 10-of-13 shooting with 8 assists, is beyond excellent.

Too bad half this board doesn't get that, and would wet its pants if other players had that type of performance. I've kind of gotten used to the hate he gets on here. It's a shame there are so many fans who think mediocre scrubs are better than him, but what can you do? No one can please everyone. I also love how some say he's not a top-10 PG "because he doesn't do this every night."

No PG does that every night. But oh well. Congrats to Kemba, proud of his results which were great, and props to the entire Charlotte team. We very nearly stole one from the Lakers, only to have the refs/Clifford/Jefferson give it away.

Still a fun game to attend.

Kemba doesn't get hate around here at all. He gets well deserved criticism for his inconsistency. He's too good to be having 20% or worse type games EVERY week. There is no reason he can't be a 45/35/80 shooter. Last year he was a monster at home and a scrub on the road which held him back greatly. This year its his inability to avoid these ridiculously horrible statlines like 1/13, 4/18, 3/17 etc. Thats a statline a great player has like, once every 2 months not 7 times in ONE month.

[Liver_Pooty]

I was at this game, surrounded by some obnoxious Lakers fans whom I was quite sarcastic to in return.

Proud of the guys' effort tonight, they played very hard against a team who had a lot of help from the officials.

Kemba was once again phenomenal. 24 points, on 10-of-13 shooting with 8 assists, is beyond excellent.

Too bad half this board doesn't get that, and would wet its pants if other players had that type of performance. I've kind of gotten used to the hate he gets on here. It's a shame there are so many fans who think mediocre scrubs are better than him, but what can you do? No one can please everyone. I also love how some say he's not a top-10 PG "because he doesn't do this every night."

No PG does that every night. But oh well. Congrats to Kemba, proud of his results which were great, and props to the entire Charlotte team. We very nearly stole one from the Lakers, only to have the refs/Clifford/Jefferson give it away.

Still a fun game to attend.

Kemba doesn't get hate around here at all. He gets well deserved criticism for his inconsistency. He's too good to be having 20% or worse type games EVERY week. There is no reason he can't be a 45/35/80 shooter. Last year he was a monster at home and a scrub on the road which held him back greatly. This year its his inability to avoid these ridiculously horrible statlines like 1/13, 4/18, 3/17 etc. Thats a statline a great player has like, once every 2 months not 7 times in ONE month.

Yep. Good post.

[catch20two]

And people need to stop harping about Gordon playing the final minutes over Taylor just for the sake of it. Get it understood that Taylor is trash. He was 3-13 (0-4 on 3s) shooting tonight for 7 points. Gordon was 5-11 with 10 points in less minutes. Gordon is half a foot shorter than Taylor and still average about the same amount of rebounds and steals in half the minutes. The guy is just not productive. When MKG come back from injury I hope Gordon take all of Taylor's minutes but I doubt it because Clifford kinda likes him.

In his first game as MKG’s replacement, Taylor looked every bit like he was about to prove his value to this Bobcats team. In 37 minutes against the Philadelphia 76ers, Taylor put up 20 points, eight rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal while shooting a solid 8-16 from the field, though he went just 2-7 from long-distance.
In the four games since that win over Philadelphia, though, Taylor has been less-than-stellar. He notched a DNP this past Monday with a heel bruise. In the other three contests, Taylor has averaged just eight points, two rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.7 steals per game on 10-33 shooting from the field and 1-8 shooting from three, all while getting more than 28 minutes per game in all three contests.

And people thought MKG struggled as a scorer SMH. The grass is not greener with Taylor shooting. It's actually bluer. It was pure ignorance for Clifford to give Taylor the other half of MKG's minutes as if they are equal players. MKG is better offensively and defensively than Taylor. He just doesn't throw up as much crap.

[MPM]

First, crappy loss. No excuses for this one. I didn't think that LA played that well, yet - through horrible 3 pt. shooting and Al's poor shooting (he's shooting a career low 44%) - we found a way to blow this.

Second, I was absolutely sickened to see so many yellow jerseys in the stands and hear loud cheers when Kobe and Pau made their FT’s at the end of the game. Horrible. I hate all things LA to begin with - to see it infect TWC made me ill.

[LamarMatic7]

And people need to stop harping about Gordon playing the final minutes over Taylor just for the sake of it. Get it understood that Taylor is trash. He was 3-13 (0-4 on 3s) shooting tonight for 7 points. Gordon was 5-11 with 10 points in less minutes. Gordon is half a foot shorter than Taylor and still average about the same amount of rebounds and steals in half the minutes. The guy is just not productive. When MKG come back from injury I hope Gordon take all of Taylor's minutes but I doubt it because Clifford kinda likes him.

In his first game as MKG’s replacement, Taylor looked every bit like he was about to prove his value to this Bobcats team. In 37 minutes against the Philadelphia 76ers, Taylor put up 20 points, eight rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal while shooting a solid 8-16 from the field, though he went just 2-7 from long-distance.
In the four games since that win over Philadelphia, though, Taylor has been less-than-stellar. He notched a DNP this past Monday with a heel bruise. In the other three contests, Taylor has averaged just eight points, two rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.7 steals per game on 10-33 shooting from the field and 1-8 shooting from three, all while getting more than 28 minutes per game in all three contests.

And people thought MKG struggled as a scorer SMH. The grass is not greener with Taylor shooting. It's actually bluer. It was pure ignorance for Clifford to give Taylor the other half of MKG's minutes as if they are equal players. MKG is better offensively and defensively than Taylor. He just doesn't throw up as much crap.

As I said in the "fun with stats" thread - Jeff is the worst at catching and shooting in the league this season.

[LamarMatic7]

For **** sakes, we were clearly the better team out there and yet we lost. I love the (admittedly pointless) trivia that we're great against the Lakers. Now we're two wins under .500 against their franchise.

Lol at good ol Fred Williamson showing up only to post some pics of girls and then leaving.

[LamarMatic7]

By the way, for the ones keeping track (mrKnowitAll) - Ben Gordon's net rating is coming back to earth with a larger sample size, as I predicted before. Since this was a low-scoring game, his defensive rating is still very good - 94.4. And even though he still makes mistakes, I don't know whether it goes down this season. He's definitely trying out there and it's not like the defense falls apart whenever he hits the court. If he plays with the right line-ups, his defensive rating might as well stay solid.

[Komodo]

So Biz is quietly having a good year? How'd he play last night?

[catch20two]

By the way, for the ones keeping track (mrKnowitAll) - Ben Gordon's net rating is coming back to earth with a larger sample size, as I predicted before. Since this was a low-scoring game, his defensive rating is still very good - 94.4. And even though he still makes mistakes, I don't know whether it goes down this season. He's definitely trying out there and it's not like the defense falls apart whenever he hits the court. If he plays with the right line-ups, his defensive rating might as well stay solid.

I never thought I'd say this but Gordon guarded Kobe better than Hendo. I thought Kobe was going to murder Gordon little ass but Gordon kept him off his spots, made him brick a few, and even travel.

[fatlever]

i havent been mad at gordon in at least 3 games. thats a record. he now looks like a league average bench player instead of one of the worst net +/- guys in the league.

[Snidely FC]

yet, as if he has caught Bobcat-itis, Gordon's 3 pt % has fallen to 15%, and he has turned into a mid-range shooting driver, ala Hendo.

imo Taylor seems to suddenly have a hitch during that slow wind up when he shoots. That is fixable. He's had two great games in the last week. He played Paul George even the other night. He's a second year player making less than 800k. I think he's a bargain.

[Snidely FC]

This sure felt like a game we should not have lost. Kemba makes that late 3 or Al drops one of those chippies he threw up, maybe we win.

HOWEVER. LA outscored us 21-6 from 3 and 21-5 from free throws. Last night, POR made 21 three point shots! Maybe we are not constructed to win in today's efficiency oriented league.

On July 10 this year we signed Al Jefferson for $13mln/yr.
On the same day, POR traded for and signed Robin Lopez, Dorrell Wright & Thomas Robinson for combined 12 mln/yr.
Our guys play great but they're not beating teams that make double digit threes in a game. Maybe we need to spend our money on more efficient players?

[Robot Rock]

yet, as if he has caught Bobcat-itis, Gordon's 3 pt % has fallen to 15%, and he has turned into a mid-range shooting driver, ala Hendo.

It's The Reggie Williams Theory. No matter how good you are at threes, you suck at them when you play for Charlotte. I think early-80s Bird or mid-90s Reggie would shoot 30% from outside here, haha.

[Eoghan]

So Biz is quietly having a good year? How'd he play last night?

Looked good. Finished some gimmie dunks with authority, set his typical bone-rattling screens that helped Kemba get hot and made a nice baseline J. On the downside he bobbled a pass and rushed a hookshot, and had a debatable offensive foul from lowering his shoulder.

He just needs more minutes but Clifford is too busy playing a gassed Al Jefferson to kill Charlotte's chances of winning down the stretch.