as is normally the case, the Bobcats have a chance to win it. You either clawed back from a double-digit deficit or you watched a lead you've nursed for the past 30 minutes or so dwindle away to nothing. You have your time outs and you're team is looking for leadership to bring home the win. What do you do... What do you do?

Okay, so it's tough to do a Dennis Hopper impersonation in a blogpost, but work with me here.

With only a couple of exceptions, the Bobcats have been in the hunt for the win in the closing minutes of most of their games this season but never really seem to finish up without walking off the court with yet another tally for the "L" column. A lot of things have been blamed for it:

1. Felton's ineptitude

2. Free Throw misses

3. The lack of a leader to take charge and close the win

4. Larry Brown's failure to (fill in the blank)

So let's examine this. We're losing a LOT of games in the last 3 minutes. The NBA axiom in these cases (especially when playing on the road) is that if you can hang tough (within 10 points or so) as the game enters that last several minutes you can use fouls, key matchups, or whatever the situation calls for to take the came at least SOME of the time.

What do our Cats need to do? It seems to me we're still in the game almost every night when it comes down to crunch time and we repeatedly get crunched. If you were running the show courtside, what would YOU be doing differently? Let's asssume you know what to expect in general - that you can't rely on our ability at the stripe to creep back in a free throw at a time with any regularity for example.

Would you try Henderson and throw him to the wolves? Would you mix the lineup to present fresher legs or just a different combination? I'd like the input of all the other armchair coaches, from generalities to specific set plays you might have drawn up for just such an emergency.