That was just truly, madly, deeply horrible. Just a total no show, almost across the board, by everyone on the Pacers. They got murdered on the glass — often a telltale sign of lethargy — on the way to getting blown out by perhaps the worst offense in the NBA. And this was on a night when the Bobcats only made 1 three-pointer, so this wasn’t exactly the March Madness-like phenomenon of a team just getting hot and blowing the barn doors off. Still, they shot 50% from the field overall, which helps illustrate just how many open mid-range jumpers and easy looks in the paint that the Pacers gave up.

Brandon Rush actually started off making a few shots, which was a nice change-of-pace for him — but soon reverted back to the Mayor of Brick City. Actually, that’s not even fair. I bet Cory Booker, the actual mayor of Newark, New Jersey, could shoot better than 26.2% from three-point range.

Granger was ok early but then he started settling for way too many threes. Including last night’s 2/7 showing from long-range, Danny is now up to 8.6 three-point attempts per game, easily leading the league. In fact, the only other guys who are even launching more than 7 threes per night are Kevin Martin (whose 7.6 attempts per game came is the small sample of only the 5 games before going down with a broken wrist), JR Smith (whose 7.2 attempts per came in the small sample of only the 6 games since he’s returned from suspension) and Trevor Ariza (who has played 14 games, but is stuggling mightily to figure out how to turn himself from role player to number-one option for a team that desperately needs him to score).

Last year, Danny shot threes at a high clip as well, obviously, but 6.7 per night and 8.6 per night is a huge difference. And with last night being yet another night were he was shooting them more like LeBron James and less like Peja Stojokovic, it makes his decision to stand 24-feet from the hoop shooting rather than getting into the paint even more indefensible. When you’re the only thing even close to an All-Star on your team, it’s on you to force the action and get to the hoop, not have 7 of your 14 shots be threes. Especially on a night where you’re shooting like Marquis Daniels.

Earl and TJ were both had moments of good play and moments of terrible decision-making, which appears to be a typical night at the office for both. Hibbert was ineffective and soft, having two dunks blocked and generally just getting his butt-kicked on both ends by the 32-year-old Nazr Mohammend, who scored 18 points in 18 minutes on just 10 shots. The 6’8″ Boris Diaw further exposed the lack of interior defense by Roy, Troy and the rest of the bigs by scoring his 17 points on 8/13 shooting and finding the time to grab 7 boards. Tyler brought a lift when he came into the game to raucous applause from his North Carolina faithful, but he didn’t exactly produce a ton, in part because he remains on a minute restriction. Still, even without major production, it was a productive outing for the rookie nonetheless with 8 points and 6 boards in 20 mintutes. His pick-setting ability is also improving by the game. Latsly, it was also good to see Foster out there, even in limited minutes when he didn’t do much.

Tough to find any more silver linings than that though.

Sure, it’s early, but, yeah, I’m getting sick of saying that and December is right around the corner. Last night, the offense was again a giant problem. And the 41.0% shooting from the floor we saw last night is actually buoyed quite heavily by several buckets in garbage time. They were down around the 36% mark towards the end of the 3rd quarter, at which point the game was already most certainly over.

Ultimately, they just have no one who can score. And no one who can be relied on to score, more fairly. I love Dahntay Jones’ aggressiveness, but he should not be someone we have to look to to carry the offense for quarters at a time. Just not gonna cut it.

I mean, Troy better get back to his 45% from three shooting from last year — and fast — if this team wants to even keep treading water until Dunleavy gets back. Hurry up, dude. Hurry up.

Doubt Brandon makes the cover this week.

[TABLE=9]

Glossary: Offensive Rating | Defensive Rating | eFG% | Pace

No extensive preview today. It’s Sunday. Daddy’s drinking.

But I wanted to at least throw the pre-game stats up. And, honestly, what else do you really need to know about the Bobcats? Their offense makes even Indy’s look like the 2006 Suns and they now have our boy Cpt. Jack. That’s pretty much the only stuff of even marginal interest about this team other than perhaps Gerald Wallace being fun to watch, them having two decent, diminutive point guards (DJ Augustin and Ray Felton) and the fact that our old friend Larry Brown is running the team. And, oh yeah, they have lost seven straight games so they are probably looking at the Pacers coming to town the same way Indy is looking at going to Charlotte: a good chance to pick up a much-needed win.

Aside from than that, all you need to know is they are one of the worst teams in the NBA and the Pacers should beat them.

UPDATE: Oh yeah. This is also Tyler’s return to North Carolina. I suppose that’s interesting sorta.

Getting back to the above stats for a minute, though, are there other things you would like to see before each game? I added “average scoring margin,” aka, margin of victory, because I think that’s perhaps the best barometer of how well a team is playing in the regular season, but I wasn’t sure about some other stuff. This is still a new, evolving blog after all, and the game previews are more for your benefit than something I get a ton of joy out of doing.

What will make them more helpful/informative? You want other team player breakdowns? More stats? We have a ton of numbers. Are you all cool with eFG% or do you want regular FG%, too? Essentially, eFG% is just FG% that accounts for the fact that 3-pointers are worth more points and, thus, have a higher risk-reward potential. It’s pretty simple really. Just think of it as FG% adjusted for to account for threes. Similarly, yall cool with offensive and defensive ratings? They are good, yet admittedly imperfect, barometers of just how effective a team is on each side of the ball. Would you like to see anything else? Turnovers per game? FTs per game? Rebounding differential? Would you like me to ask more questions in this paragraph?

Ultimately, I don’t want to overload you with stats you don’t find useful or stuff that might confuse people, but we got numbers for days. Any thoughts you have on the matter or any insight into how you prepare to watch a game would be great to hear.

Comment below or shoot me an email to 8pts9secs@gmail.com to let me know about this stuff or any other thoughts you have about 8p9s thus far. We started July 15, so we just hit our four-month anniversary recently and I think we’re starting to get into the groove. But any suggestions, critiques or praise you have about the site would be very helpful, so please do reach out.