"I feel like we kind of gave the game away," said forward Gerald Wallace, following an 86-84 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs. "At the same time, it shows the improvement this team has made: A couple of years ago this would have been an easy blowout for them.

"We had a shot to win it....I've been here five years, and in the improvement we're making, this is a huge step."

That shot to win it was a 29-foot 3-point attempt from forward Boris Diaw as time expired. Spurs superstar Tim Duncan had just blocked Raymond Felton's drive with such force the ball ricocheted straight into Diaw's hands.

"I'm thinking, I should have hit it a little softer," said Duncan (17 points, 11 rebounds, six assists). "Just thinking the worst when it got to him."

Diaw's attempt was on line, but fell short, ending a three-game winning streak. The Bobcats are 9-9 since Diaw (16 points, 13 rebounds) and Raja Bell (25 points, six rebounds) arrived from the Phoenix Suns.

There's no maybe this team is on the right track.

"Raja said it best," coach Larry Brown recalled, "If we keep competing like that, we're going to progress."

Competing was the right term because the Bobcats (16-25) gave one of the NBA's elite teams a scare without making shots. They finished the game 36 percent from the field. They outrebounded the Spurs (46-39) and guarded San Antonio into two shot-clock violations and a 3-second violation.

The Bobcats made up a nine-point first-half deficit to lead by eight with 42 seconds left in the third quarter. And then they ran out of bodies. Substitutes Shannon Brown, Adam Morrison and Juwan Howard couldn't manage the lead, forcing Larry Brown to reinsert the starters faster than he preferred.

"We had a really bad period where we had some bad matchups," Brown said.

That led to foul trouble for Emeka Okafor; he committed his fifth with 2 1/2 minutes left. It might have helped had the newest Bobcat, defensive center DeSagana Diop, been active, but he still hasn't practiced with new teammates, and Brown thought activating him would be unfair.

"Duncan's going to get everybody in foul trouble," Brown said. "Sure, (an acclimated) Diop would have helped."

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