Bucks 97, Bobcats 91

Last night’s Charlotte-Milwaukee game had something in it for everyone: 1) a win for the winners, 2) the third-worst record for the losers. The Bobcats chose Door #2, and we’ll see what our Mystery Surprise is come draft day. Plus, the good news is I’m positive we’re not tanking these games down the stretch—we really are this bad, and our conscience will be clean when we get that high pick.

Then again, we put the Bucks on the line 20 times in the 4th quarter to blow a 6-point lead with six minutes left. Milwaukee coach Larry Krystkowiak said, "It doesn't take a genius to know that when you're more aggressive and taking the ball to the basket you're probably going to get more calls." Maybe, but it also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that three of those foul shots were technicals and another was a defensive 3-second violation. Neither do you need a brain surgeon to tell you that Charlotte went just 5/10 from the FT line themselves in the fourth quarter. So who knows, when crappy teams run aimlessly in circles it’s a very, very…mad world.

One thing I do know: I’ll miss Terry Stotts. His appearance always made me want to run up and down the street of my neighborhood yelling “Merry Christmas!” to everyone, but Coach Krystkowiak seems like he might be able to whip these guys into shape in a way that George Bailey never could. Last night Brian Skinner actually looked and hustled like Rick Ross with 12 big rebounds. Meanwhile, it appears that Australia’s Andrew Bogut (17 points, 11 rebounds) will have the longevity of AC/DC rather than Silverchair in this league. Charlie Bell and Mo Williams had 17 and 18, respectively, and of course Michael Redd (27 points, 10/10 from the line) handled all of the foul shooting.

The Bobcats did get one of their injured guys back. Unfortunately, it was Primoz Brezec. This left Voskuhl in a night-long mosh pit with Skinner and Bogut, and he actually had a respectable 10 points and 5 boards (the problem is he only went 4/10 from the line). I liked how commentator Henry Williams said early on that Voskuhl would have to "use" all 6 fouls, as if that’s some sort of viable technique of Voskuhl's. Derek Anderson had 15 points and Walter Herrmann exploded for 18 points in 30 minutes of action—call him Herrmann Monnsterr. He’s still kind of hard on the eyes defensively, with all his flailing and flopping (not to mention everyone younger than Dikembe Mutombo blows by him fast enough to send his pony-tail whipping in the wind like a flag), but as long as they don’t change the rules on that he’ll be okay. And I don’t think they will, because I think flopping is actually just a “make-believe” problem--like expanding the NCAA Tournament or illegal immigration--that the powers that be just want to talk about in order to skirt the actual issues.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Michael Jordan was fined by the league for mentioning Kevin Durant in last week’s press conference. What’s interesting is, MJ didn’t actually say the words “Kevin Durant,” he just said “that kid in Texas”--for all we know he was talking about D.J. Augustin or possibly even Jenna Bush. And what’s really weird is I actually made fun of him for this at the time by suggesting that we’re in trouble if our VP of operations either didn’t know or forgot the name of the biggest college sensation in years. So now it appears that a) Jordan is not out-of-touch (not that I really thought he was), he was merely shrewdly trying to stay within the rules by not saying Durant’s name; b) he was not shrewd enough, because you apparently can’t even talk around a college player’s name; and c) I look stupid for making fun of Jordan, who was in reality acting shrewdly, but d) not as stupid had I might have looked had he avoided the fine altogether. It’s a twisty world we navigate, we online blogging smart-asses.