Bobcats 103, Pistons 96

Somehow, the Bobcats found themselves playing their third game of the season against the Pistons, despite the fact that we’ve only played some teams in our own division once. I don’t like to look at what’s ahead on the schedule (mostly because I envision them all being blowout losses and then I get depressed), but at this rate we better close out the season by playing Atlanta, like, 5 times in a row.

On the other hand, we’ve now taken 2/3 from Detroit, so go figure. Perhaps at halftime Coach Bickerstaff had the team sit around the television and watch the President’s speech, which then inspired them, but Charlotte’s victory probably had more to do with Chauncey Billups being out with an injury, Rasheed Wallace barely playing, and Rip Hamilton getting ejected after arguing a questionable foul call.

Strange game. The Pistons put us on the foul line 23 times in the fourth quarter alone. Even stranger, we made 20 of them. I’m starting to think that a better free throw percentage must have been the team’s New Year’s Resolution, as it’s suddenly become one of our stronger suits. In a way I’m kind of sad, because our abysmal foul shooting always used to be a guaranteed joke-producer, so now I’m going to have to look elsewhere (this must be how all those comedians felt in ’92 when Dan Quayle left office). Matt Carroll is now the #1 free throw shooter in the league, for goodness’ sake, which begs the question: why aren’t the Bobcats marketing him more? I mean, if the league’s best free throw shooter won’t put butts in seats, then I frankly don’t know what will. And if any of the team’s marketing officials are reading this worthless column, that last line was a JOKE. I say this because commentator Matt Devlin announced that Saturday night’s home game will be “NASCAR Night,” which just about takes the cake in terms of All-Time Worst Cross-Promotion Ideas. How much NASCAR/NBA overlap could there possibly be—5 fans? 6? What’s next, “NHL Night”? How about “Opera Night”?

Anyway, the game was Wallace-less. Gerald apparently is only just now able to lift his arm above his head without screaming (although according to the team's trainers, somehow this puts him on track to start Friday or Saturday at the latest), and Coach Flip Saunders benched Rasheed because he was late to a team meeting. The announcers didn’t say if Saunders also gave Sheed a week’s detention, but the move struck me as somewhat juvenile and insulting. This is because Sheed was also punished in the Pistons’ last game, which happened to be against the pitiful 76ers, so my question is whether or not Sheed would be sitting if Detroit played back-to-backs against, say, Dallas and San Antonio?

Whatever the answer, the Bobcats made them pay. Felton had 18 points and 7 assists, Okafor had 10 points and 10 assists, Carroll had 17 points (and 7 rebounds!), and Sean May had 14 and 8 off the bench. Adam Morrison had 16 points, continuing his odd pattern of playing much better on the road. Morrison seems to think he plays better on the road because there’s less pressure, although I have no idea why he feels a half-empty Bobcats Arena is more pressurized than a packed Palace full of hostile Kid Rock lovers. Perhaps it's because Mr. Rock wasn’t there in person (and neither was Eminem or Bob Seeger or the White Stripes. Heck, we can’t even get Insane Clown Posse to show up when we’re in the Motor City—where’s the love, Motown?).

10 wins! We cracked the double-digit barrier! If there was a down note at all, it’s that color commentator Adrian Branch is no longer with the team—what happened?! Adrian was one of the best commentators out there! He was also relentlessly--pathologically-- sunny and cheerful. We could be losing to Milwaukee by 30 on a Tuesday night and AB would have something positive to point out. I'm seriously ticked off by this. In a world in which Tommy Heinsohn and Red Kerr have job security, how am I supposed to explain to my children that Adrian Branch got fired? No offense to his replacement, Henry Williams, who’s a good guy and apparently receives the same amusing wardrobe advice as Shannon Sharpe (HW had a suit last night with pinstripes that would best be described as “powerful”), but I demand an explanation!