MVN - Most Valuable Network

What happend to Superman?

Before I star this, I want to make sure everyone understands where I’m coming from. Dwight Howard has been the most influential player for the Magic over the past several seasons and I cannot imagine the franchise without him. He is easily the most talented center in the NBA and Orlando should be so thankful that they have a player of Howard’s caliber. That being said, our Superman disappeared against the Pistons, and his play against them the final two games of the series were probably the biggest letdown of the season for me.

In the conference semifinals against the Pistons, Howard averaged 15 points, 13 rebounds and a 51% free-throw average. While those numbers are down from his season average, you have to expect stats to go down a little against a tough, physical team like Detroit. However, it wasn’t the numbers that concerned me, it was his demeanor, his lack of intensity, and the fact that he looked intimidated at times on the court.

In Game’s 4 and 5, Howard put up only 22 combined points, but the more concerning part was that it appeared Detroit got in his head. Howard looked uninterested at times, was slow getting to the ball defensively and seemed to be going through the motions. So, what brought about this decrease in Howard’s play against Detroit?

Well, we can rule out being intimidated of a playoff atmosphere, that’s for sure. Last series against Toronto, Dwight averaged an outstanding 22 points and 18 boards, so he was definitely ready for the spotlight of playoff basketball.

Granted, Toronto isn’t Detroit, and that is perhaps why Dwight faltered.  Detroit is much better defensively down low than Toronto and they have more big man depth, but Toronto double Dwight constantly, while Detroit beat him man-to-man, so you would think that would negate some of Toronto’s lack of defense.

Maybe the reason for Dwight’s drop off was his thumb then. He hurt it earlier in the Pistons’ series, and that certainly explains his inability to bring in a lot of passes, which happened countless times in Game’s 4 and 5. However, does that explain his lackadaisical play in the past week, does having a hurt thumb hinder your ability to go after loose balls, dive on the floor and run up court your hardest? The answer is no, so while the thumb might have bothered him on offense, it shouldn’t have hindered him that much in other aspects of the game.

So, I think we can conclude that difficult opponents and a jammed thumb slowed him down, but Howard disappeared at times this series, so is that why? I have an inclination that no, it isn’t. My guess is that Dwight got flustered too easily and left the game mentally. Look at his free-throw percentage and that should show it all. He gets flustered and looses concentration.

The Pistons played him physically and he didn’t get some calls, and instead of being more intense, he backed down and got flustered. You could see it in his facial expressions and body language…he was lost. Dwight backed down last game, he didn’t attack the basket aggressively, didn’t go up strong for rebounds and when Hedo’s shot was blocked at the end of the game, he gave a half hearted effort to get the loose ball.

I understand that the Pistons were physical and some calls may not have gone his way and that his thumb bothered him, but Dwight faded away when Orlando needed him most. This is an NBA All-First team player, and he got worse as the competition got better, not the sign of a leader. Yes Dwight is young, but what I saw in him was disturbing

I don’t want to be too critical of Howard because as I said, Orlando would be nothing without him, but his lack of enthusiasm against Detroit really bothered me. Hopefully Howard will take that away from this postseason a valuable lesson, and that is he can never back down in the playoffs and must give it his ‘A’ game, regardless of what is happening. He needs to stop joking around and cannot keep looking at refs to give him love until he constantly until he earns it. Dwight has many things to work on this off-season, but mainly he has to grow up if Orlando wants to get past the second round next year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Orlando Magic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.