<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">That overtime loss to the Miami Heat on Monday was the best illustration yet of what really troubles the Charlotte Bobcats: They have plenty of keepers, but not one closer. A closer in basketball is the player who can round up all the good things teammates did in quarters one through three and make them count for something in quarter four. He's Shaquille O'Neal, telling the Heat just to ride him until the job is finished. "We were messing around the whole game," O'Neal said following a 106-105 overtime victory. "I told the guys to keep coming to me and they did." O'Neal scored 14 points in the fourth quarter and all eight of Miami's points in overtime. He's the league's premier closer, and will be until his back or legs give out. The Bobcats have no Shaq. They also lack a Paul Pierce, Ray Allen or Gilbert Arenas. There are varying degrees of closer in the NBA, but the way the Bobcats bobbled a nine-point lead in the last three minutes of regulation, I'm not sure this roster has a candidate. The Bobcats did the logical thing down the stretch, trying to run pick-and-pop plays for Brevin Knight and Primoz Brezec. Brezec entered the game top-10 in the league in field-goal percentage, and him taking jump shots from the wing presumably forces O'Neal away from the basket. At minimum, that gives Gerald Wallace a chance at a putback. But logical strategy doesn't trump flawed execution. The Bobcats missed five of their last six shots -- the last three by Brezec -- and his indecision, taking that last miss with three-tenths of a second left, negated any chance at a putback. Brezec is a keeper, not a closer. The same applies to Knight, Wallace and Emeka Okafor. Raymond Felton might have closer qualities, but I can think of just one closer of Felton's size, and Allen Iverson is a once-a-generation little man. The expansion Bobcats are ahead of the Hornets at the same point in time, assembling viable starters at four positions in Season 2. The difference is the Hornets later drafted closers -- Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning and Baron Davis came at the end of the team's run in Charlotte.</div> Source Draft Adam Morrison!
Yeah, we really need to make a run at snagging Morrison, he'll be the closer we need that makes big plays at the end of the game.
