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PHILADELPHIA – Between the back spasms early and the back-breakers late, this one was painful on several levels for the Charlotte Bobcats.
Even with their starting center sidelined by back spasms and their starting power forward playing through a similar injury, the Bobcats were tough and skilled enough to beat the Philadelphia 76ers Wednesday. They weren't smart or precise enough.
So they lost their sixth straight overall, 86-84, at the Wachovia Center.
For the record, the Sixers won it on a transition layup by Lou Williams with three seconds left. But it was the disorganization on the previous play, leading to a desperate, 20-foot miss by Boris Diaw, that did them in.
The Bobcats (3-8) were coming out of a timeout with the game tied, yet didn't know where to go. There were too many players on the same side of the court and no one called timeout to abort the play. So Diaw's jumper from the corner led to a long Sixers rebound and the fast break that ended the night.
"We had 30 seconds to get everybody in their spots and that's the worst shot you want to take at the end'' because of the potential for a breakout rebound, said coach Larry Brown.
New Bobcat Stephen Jackson took the blame – he's still learning the plays – but there was some concern that point guard Raymond Felton didn't anticipate the problem and call a timeout.
Those breakdowns are doing in the Bobcats. The Sixers scored 25 of their 86 points off Charlotte turnovers. Thirteen more Philadelphia points came on offensive rebounds. Add up those extra Sixers possessions, and the Bobcats' margin for error was small.
Despite that, this was a winnable game. Jackson kept the Bobcats in it offensively, scoring 26 points and adding five assists and five rebounds in his second game with the team. He was compensating for an ailing Diaw, who had a sore back and was limited to eight points, five rebounds and two assists.
The Bobcats lost center Tyson Chandler late in the first half to back spasms. He came down awkwardly off a jump, and heat and stretching treatment wasn't enough to get him back on the court.
That's a new problem. The chronic one is the sloppy ballhandling negating solid defense.
"The point guards…'' Brown said, stopping in mid-sentence, "(Philadelphia) got 25 points off turnovers. Every game, it's a bunch of turnovers. And we took 24 3-pointers off 71 shots.''
That's not Brown's formula for a winning team.
