I think they'd have the same problem with McGrady. Not only does McGrady settle for outside shots, he's a worse shooter than Hedo and Rashard. They would be much better with a guy like Pierce or Joe Johnson - a player that can shoot and penetrate consistently. I assume your point was about commanding double teams but I think what they need is a perimeter player that can not only command double teams but also penetrate and shoot well.
They were either playing the Yao Ming song just now (the timeout before 5:20 in the 4th, if you have it on DVR) or some kind of rip off. It was weird
I still think T-mac would of helped him out a lot more than Hedo and Rashard. Pierce and Joe would help him a lot too but he just doesn't have the guy that can consistently get you 25 a night. Well and of course I am talking about the T-mac in his prime, but of course with his injuries, Orlando would be in the same situation they are in now, maybe worse.
Major props to Rivers, Thibodeau or whoever it was that figured out that you don't need to double Howard most of the time. You need to keep him away from the basket, deny him that inside position and challenge him to make whatever sloppy hook/bank/jumper he improvises with. If he gets within five meet of the basket THEN you double and/or foul. You absolutely cannot automatically just leave 40%+ three-point shooters open. Too many teams make the mistake of the automatic double team. He expected it tonight and when it didn't happen it appeared to throw his game off. He looked visibly frustrated and wasn't getting to the line. Perkins, Big Baby and company played him very well one-on-one. Major props to those guys for their efforts. P.S. Ohhh boy, Game 2: Wizards vs. Lakers. Gee, I wonder who's winning this dynamite match up!?!?
Dwight Howard career Field Goal Attempts/Game average is only 10.6. He converts a high % & gets to the line a lot (which naturally brings down the # of FGAs some). So he's very efficient in his touches. 12.3 this year is a career high. Compare that to Yao who's 2nd lowest career season of FGA is 12.2 attempts, with a high of 17.1. Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson, Ewing were all getting around 20 shots a game Either Howard is a rich man's glorified version of Greg Oden on offense, or like suggested they're too 3 point heavy and dont have enough facilitators to get Howard involved properly. Or Howard needs to command the ball better.
I think the biggest problem the Magic have is depth. One major injury to Howard, Turkoglu, Lewis or Nelson and they're a .500 team. The Rockets have proven to be a top-5 team in the tough Western conference despite missing significant injury time to THREE starters.
