Bobcats got your tongue? Lakers get sent home with bruised egos

Somebody call Smush Parker and tell him to dust off his purple kicks. Because if Kobe Bryant is at all missing the time he played with Kwame Brown, a 10-day for Smush in L.A. could be in the cards … OK, so Kobe didn’t say he misses Kwame — he didn’t say anything at all — but during last night’s loss to the Bobcats, Kobe had to notice Kwame was outplaying his more talented opposition for key stretches simply because he went harder. Six of Kwame’s eight rebounds were offensive boards, as he teamed with Nazr Mohammad (16 pts) and Gerald Wallace (20 pts, 11 rebs) to win the interior battle against the half-asleep champs in a 20-piecing for the ‘Cats … Defensively, Derek Fisher couldn’t stay in front of DJ Kid Capri right now, so you knew D.J. Augustin was gonna give the vet problems. Augustin (7 pts, 9 asts, 0 TO’s) just lost Fish a few times on his way into the lane, where his drive-and-kick game gave L.A. problems. That and Gerald Henderson (18 pts) breaking out his not-as-jacked-man’s Jimmy Jackson game put Charlotte in position to beat a sluggish L.A. team that was playing its fourth game in five nights … Get ready for a steady dose of “What’s wrong with the Lakers?” fire-alarm stories today. (Which will promptly be forgotten after they destroy the Cavs on Wednesday.) Phil Jackson‘s post-game session with the media lasted about as long as Paperboy‘s rap career, and Kobe (20 pts, 8-20 FG) avoided the media altogether. All Phil had to say was, “I’m embarrassed about what we did and that’s it.” We’re just glad they stopped wearing the gold unis on the road … Weird stat: The Lakers are 5-8 all-time against the Bobcats. The only other team against which the Lakers have a losing record is the Celtics. So maybe Michael Jordan was being very calculated when he hired ex-Celtic Paul Silas to coach this team. He’s building a team of Laker-killers … Lakers/Bobcats set the tone for what was, honestly, a crappy night of basketball. Few of the matchups had any on-paper appeal, and none of the games were close. One game that looked like it could have been interesting was Nuggets/Rockets, mainly because the last time they played, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Martin combined to score 87 points in a shootout. Neither guy did anything to stand out this time — K-Mart scored just 13 points, while ‘Melo was held to 16 as the Houston announcers couldn’t hide their happiness at his misery — but the Rockets as a whole put an impressive smack-down on a Denver team that looked like they were running through the motions … Be real: Would anybody complain if we scrapped the Shooting Stars competition on All-Star Saturday Night and had a Backup Dunk Contest with a field of Jeremy Evans, Paul George, J.R. Smith and Chase Budinger? … Of all the guys you could point at on the Nuggets who need a week in Bobby Knight‘s boot camp, Birdman Andersen might be the worst. Does he even care anymore? One time he bit on a Shane Battier up-fake and left Jordan Hill wide open for a dunk, and the ball clocked Birdman in the head after snapping through the net. Birdman barely reacted … The Philly game over the weekend was an exception to the rule: Beating up on bad teams is what the Spurs do for a living. Last night it was the Nets who got molly-whopped by San Antonio, as Manu Ginobili (22 pts) and the guys were taking target practice before Tim Duncan and Tony Parker sat out the fourth quarter … Other stat lines from Monday: Josh Smith put up 27 points, 14 rebounds and 3 steals as Atlanta beat Detroit; Carlos Delfino, a.k.a. “Del-Three-No” according to the Bucks announcers, dropped 26 points, 7 treys, 9 boards and 3 steals to lead Milwaukee past the Clippers; and Dante Cunningham had 18 points and 13 boards in Portland’s win over Minnesota … We’re out like Birdman …