Am I the only one who noticed how much Dwight Struggled?

My impression, however, is that Howard had been attracting the defense to collapse. At times Howard was swarmed by double/triple defense when the ball is in his hands. He opened the game very well with a few alley-oops which triggered the collapsed defense. The Rockets perimeter that took what's given to them and killed them with 3 pointers.

I don't worry about Howard's numbers. He will shine. He will be more efficient if he is willing to do more pick-N-roll. If he keeps the ball high above his head his turnover number will drops too.

This Rockets team is hard to beat. Excited.

 

Isn't there an old thread by CH called Aaron grey the Dwight stopper? As mentioned, Dwight has always been meh against bigger guys.

But the ball was moving great and he still pulls double teams opening shots up for the rest of the team.

 

It's only the third preseason game, calm down. He was against a great big defensive center and he really wasn't getting the calls he would normally get for some reason. He is meshing well with the starters and that's all I'm concerned with at this point.

 

Playing against Asik in practice will go a long way toward helping Dwight be effective against bigger centers.

 

Indiana is one of the best defensive teams in the league. This is the reason you have 2 or 3 players that are the best or better than most at their position. If they devote their defensive attention to D12 then that creates more opportunities for everyone else. Did it look like be struggled? Yes absolutely, but everyone else had a great game because Dwight demands so much attention. It's pick your poison and I love it! It's not like he had a terrible game either....he definitely could do better and that's what's scary. As long as everyone steps up to take what the defense gives the offense will be hard to stop. Man we didnt even have Asik in too....it's just preseason but its hard not to be optimistic about what this club is capable of.

 

We'll he'll always have issues against guys the size of Hibbert, it's only natural. An extra 4 inches makes a HUGE difference.

Think of it this way, Howard posting up on Hibbert is like James Harden posting up on Howard. Power moves just won't work consistently.

 

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Even Hakeem Olajuwon struggled on occasion. I remember Shawn Kemp giving him fits.

 

Seriously, Houston only really struggled in the 3rd quarter. What I saw was that Hill was having a bit of his way with Lin. Lin played way too much in the first half and you could see him suffering a bit in the 3rd quarter from fatigue. In a real game I could see Bev being injected early in that quarter to lock down on Hill. These two games just shows that Indiana is built to beat Miami, but will have a hard time with a team like the Rockets with a elite center.

 

I think his offense is improving. For instance, i did a euro step with Dwight last night on 2k14. :grin:

 

Agree 100%. They are a good team, but I don't think they're an elite team. Paul George is going to be scary good though. I really like his game.

 

Hibbert has become better but Dwight is ahead of him pretty well. Dwight isn't even going his hardest yet. Hibbert's best effort against Dwight's worst effort is still pretty close lol.

 

We don't need Dwight for his offense as much as we need him on defense the most.

Plus, he is great at finishing alley-oops and rebounds.

 

I was never convinced that Dwight is going to be a hugely dominant post player, but he's good enough to draw Hibbert's full attention; and that's great for everyone else. And he does so many other things that make the team better. It's good to see that even as he struggled against Hibbert, the team just looked so dangerous on offense against an elite defensive team.

 

If you're surprised that Dwight struggles against extremely large centers than you just haven't been watching basketball much the past several years. Even if you've only watched Rockets games you would know that Yao routinely had his way with Dwight over the years and it wasn't close as others have mentioned. Hibbert being a giant in his own right does present problems, but lets not also pretend that he guarded him one on one all night in both games. There was plenty of help and that help opened up opportunities for other people on the team.

I really like Asik, but please. I see comments about Asik could have put up better numbers or whatever, but Asik got the majority of his points off of garbage and hustle plays. Dwight is shifting the opposing team's defense in our favor in a way that Asik never could. Yes, I would like to see Howard make some improvement and he is doing some things outside of his comfort zone trying to expand his game right now which has contributed to his low shooting percentages, but his mere presence alone has created a dynamic that was sorely lacking last year...a post presence. Indiana practically had their way with the Rockets last year defensively. Only one major thing has changed and that is Dwight Howard. James Harden notices.

 

His post game just isn't refined enough to where you can give him the ball 8-10 feet from the basket and expect him to create a good shot for himself on his own. Especially against a defender like Hibbert and a team like the Pacers.

The Rockets need to find some better ways to get the ball to Dwight on the move, and I'm sure they are working on this. Once we get better at that, he'll start scoring much more easily. It will just take time.

 

Yeah, but that is exactly why he is working on it right now. People critique him for not really expanding his game, but when he tries things with mixed results, he gets bashed by some. He is like a kid learning to ride a bike without the training wheels on. At moments he is going to look great, but then he is going to have those moments when he loses control and crashes to the ground and you're going to want to scramble to put his training wheels back on because you know he is perfectly fine with them on. We already know he is great, no elite at running the pick and roll and catching lob dunks. No need to practice that much. Those things are his training wheels.

In the meantime, you gotta take the good with the bad until he proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can't make plays from that position on the floor. He has been practicing on his face up game with Dream and is trying to test it out in practice and preseason games. At least that is what it seems like he is doing from my perspective. You can't get better at something if you never do it. Also, he isn't going to be efficient at it right away. Give him a chance to test it out for a little while before we make judgments on it. Nobody is a finished product at anything when they first start doing it. You keep working to refine it. He will figure out what he can and can't do by failing. Yes...failing. That is the same way he will discover where his strengths are from that spot on the floor.

 

Hibbert is a beast.

 

One thing I could say for certain is after watching last game, I do not believe Dwight was not fouled ONCE.

 

Yeah he didn't get any foul calls. He didn't get any rebounds either.