Dwight Howard Discussion: The Taiwan Terror

This is a version of Dwight, every other team dreams of. Loving what im seeing

 

It was a great win on rump day. I mean hump day.

on the hind end of a back to back no less. It didn’t ever even feel hairy.

 

he attempted one the previous game in the same situation. i mean, late clock, i'm fine with planting him in the corner and letting him fire. if he hits enough, teams will have top pull their center out there on those out of bounds plays, which opens stuff up.

 

They need to play McGee in garbage time not Howard. Howard's the one whose going to be critical come playoff time as he's just a much better defender then McGee and on offense they're pretty equivalent in terms of a lob threat off the PnR. Hate for him to get a stupid injury when the Lakers are up big with a few minutes to go

 

Those free throws doh

 

McGee has been lights out as a starter and with his minutes. I wouldn't change anything. No bigger surprise than McGee the last two seasons. I thought that signing was suspect last year, glad McGee proved me wrong. Love the way he plays.

 

I like the hits more now than ever. When you’re winning everything sort of just works.

 

Thing is McGee has a lot more trouble with PnR then Dwight. Combination of footspeed, able to get low, and just better defensive instincts. Dwight is really a guy who is going to be to key to a playoff series vs Mcgee who while playing well seems more of a placeholder

 

The majority of the teams out there suck at pick n roll. They just shoot 3s. And even those who may have some talent that can run it cant really run it consistently.

One of the reasons Utah used to destroy the Lakers in the playoffs in the late 90s was the best pick and roll players of all time in Stockton and Malone. Shaq guarding the pick in roll was a massive weakness for him his whole career. This team however has Anthony Davis, and his talent alone can cover a lot even if a team is executing the play regularly.

If a team is wasting time picking and rolling to get the advantage of Javelle McGee, well then, that game will likely be over in the first quarter. Because unless you are getting and 1s on it and doing it in 10 seconds or less, you are playing Lakers basketball and you are dead right from the start.

Your only shot of beating this laker team is refs helping and hitting your 3s all game long. That's it. Clippers won by hitting everything in Game 1. Mavericks won with the refs taking every piece of momentum away from the lakers and dallas took advantage. I'd say the only loss that bothered me is the Toronto game. They did some damage at the hoop. However, bad games will happen and I'd rather lose to legitimate good teams then any bad ones.

 

:Vogelshocked:

 

At the time, the belief was that Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka negotiated Howard’s contract to be non-guaranteed so that the team could ties with him if he didn’t buy into his role, but apparently that wasn’t the case. During an appearance on ESPN’s “The Jump,” senior writer Ramona Shelburne said that it was Howard and his agent that suggested that his contract be non-guaranteed (emphasis mine): “I think with Dwight, it also goes back to why the Lakers signed that contract with him that way in the first place. Dwight asked for that. That was his idea. That wasn’t the Lakers saying ‘oh this is the only way we’ll do it.’ This was Dwight and his agent saying ‘yes, we’ll do non-guaranteed just to show you how committed we are to being this kind of player.’”
– via Christian Rivas @ Silverscreenandroll.com


Figures...and I’ll just leave it at that.

 

I would say most of the good teams run the PnR quite well and use it to setup 3s.

Dallas runs Doncic either thru iso or pNr exclusively
Harrell has become a terror offensively because starting last year hes been a terrific roll man with Williams
Denver runs Murray Jokoc PnR or pick and pops all the time

Regardless Dwight is just a better defender: there's a reason his net rating is higher then McGee in just about every combo you can run

 

I doubted him when we picked him up, but he's doing everything right.. and more. Really can be a make or break player come playoff time. I hope he puts us over the top. Rack up some championships, all that matters.

 

The day we do he might start farting up the locker room or plane cabins. You think that's worth risking?