Let me get this straight. DJ Augustin is 5-10. Raymond Felton might be 6-1. Joe Johnson is 6-8 and a deadly outside shooter, 38% from three point land the last two seasons, 44% this year. And that's mostly against opponents within four inches of his height.

Larry Brown wants Raymond Felton (6-1) to guard Joe Johnson (6-8). Nothing like this has ever failed before.

Here's to hoping the Augustin-Felton backcourt duo is just to start, and the bulk of the minutes go to a real shooting guard paired with one of the point guards. I dunno. In JRich's absence, maybe Shannon Brown is the best choice to guard Johnson. Maybe Adam Morrison can cause enough problems for JJ on the offensive end that he gets frustrated at the other end. Maybe, because J-Smoove is out for this game, they should go big and play Wallace on Johnson, with Dudley on Marvin Williams, Emeka on the center, whether that's Pachulia or the injured Horford, and Hollins or Ajinca or Mohammed against whichever other forward is out there. The point is the Bobcats have the bodies to form a reasonable matchup, but Larry Brown is fitting square pegs into octagonal holes and proclaiming the results unsatisfactory.

The Bobcats have no acceptable answer for Joe Johnson, unless you count Wallace or Dudley as acceptable (Wallace counts more than Dudley, I'd say), but that doesn't mean the answer is to give up entirely and let Johnson score 60. Then again, that's presuming the Hawks will fully exploit the matchups the Bobcats give them.

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Question of the Day

If the Clippers acquire Zach Randolph, who is a better frontcourt partner for Marcus Camby than Gerald Wallace, thus rendering Kaman a trade chip for a guard, where else could the Cats trade Gerald?

As a corollary, is it true that the missing piece of the Clippers' puzzle is now at shooting guard, which means they could really use a guy like... Corey Maggette?