Woulda coulda shoulda. Dwight Helped us get to the WCF remember? He been better than Harden in the playoffs that's for sure.
We might (might) be able to get on a roll offensively with our two X-Factors in Beas and DMo, who teams have no real scouting info on how we use them. But our defense is not playoff caliber. They still arent communicating worth crap, while trying to play a defensive scheme that is over their heads, getting lost in switches, help assignments, etc Anyone who watched the GSW/SAS game can see how those complex switches are supposed to work. It's like JBB is trying to copy defenses that his team cannot grasp and execute. maddening
lol, when Dwight played better than Harden in the playoffs (2013-2014), we couldn't even make it to the 2nd round when Harden played better than Dwight in the playoffs (2014-2015), we advanced to WCF Dwight playing good didn't win us any playoff games. He's irrelevant.
Yao owned Dwight in every single match-up games, even during Howard's prime days. Even senile grandpa Shaq of Miami owned Dwight. Dwight only dominated against scrubs and always got owned by real elite centers of this league.
Dwight has perhaps been better in the playoffs, perhaps, but he doesn't get the same individual attention that Harden gets. Stop Harden and you stop the Rockets. I blame Harden a little more for the Portland loss but I also put the onus on the coaching staff being out-classed. The idea was simple: Embarrass Harden on defense early by going to Wesley Matthews. It went downhill from there. (Not to mention Howard getting some Donaghy-esque calls that series. Oh, wait!, that would be mentioning it, hunh?) Almost all books on warfare dictate that you should catch an enemy by surprise and/or kick him in the nuts right away knowing he won't be the same afterward. The Rockets got out-coached by Stotts. Last season? Dwight showed up after being given half the season off. But he played through an injury. I won't take anything away from him, just a Harden-dominated no-imagination offense that left our star player gassed by the time the Clippers series started. I will say Harden appeared to give two sh*** after learning Curry won MVP; Harden does need to lay off the Hennessy, ho's, and star perks.
Yao is a winner, but Howard is not so far. Just ask general NBA fans, not need even ask the Lakers fans.
lets not forget dwight wont do well in a systemwhere he's ignored and downsized, and not beign strong mentally will cause him to half ass too like everyone else o nhis team. guaranteed to beast on his next team
I was just pointing out that Dwight's playoff success was mainly in the East. And his dominance vs Portland and Lopez resulted in a 1st round exit. Our WCF run was greatly assisted by getting the 2nd seed, and he didnt really help with that-missing 41 games. We did dominate Dallas by exploiting their weakness with Nowitzki and Amare's defense to force Tyson to help off of Dwight. But I considered the DJ matchup to be a wash
Yao owned Dwight in head-to-head match ups, when Dwight was still in his prime. If Yao was paired with Harden instead of this overrated and overpaid clown, we would have won the championship ring a long time ago.
Yao wouldn't have taken the Magic to the Finals. Anyone who believes that is a honk of a homer. I never said Dwight was better head to head than Yao. I said he carried his team a whole lot better by guess what? BEING ON THE COURT.
i love yao, but how could he do that from the bench when he went down with his annual injury? revisionist history at its finest, but the bottom line is yao missed pretty much half the season in 06, 07, 08 (including playoffs), and got hurt in the 2nd round in 09. he pretty much didn't play after that and h2h, yao definitely got the better of him...but dwight's defense in orlando was all time level good. what he did to make those magic teams starting hedo and shard as their forwards to be top 5 defensively...including stuff like 40 pts in a game clinching game 6 anchoring that pick and roll spacing offense of the magic too...yao couldn't have done that.
Yao could've easily taken that Magic team to the Finals because the ECF was weak as ****. Also, Dwight didn't "carry" his team, he got a lot of help from surrounding himself with sharp shooters such as J.J. Redick, Rashard Lewis, Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, etc. Dwight was lucky to not have faced Yao or Shaq during the playoffs, otherwise people would have figured out how overrated he was even back then.
OK, the NBA's most dominant defensive force in those years, who was also scoring 20ppg in the playoffs didn't "carry" his team. I know Turkoglu had some vital 4th Q performances, but let's not get carried away in semantics. Howard carried them more in the playoffs than Yao did with TMac. fwiw: Reddick played just one game against CLE in the WCFs the year Dwight carried them to the Finals.
Yao is very overrated on this board. He was hurt all the time so I don't know how he is carrying any team in the playoffs. Dwight is a better rebounder and defender than Yao. That magic team needed his defense and rebounding more than Yao's offense. During that Portland series once they started fronting yao we couldn't even get the ball to yao without turning it over.
Howard only averaged 20 ppg while the second highest scorer - Rashard Lewis - almost averaged as much points (19 ppg) in the playoffs. That's not "carrying" the team. Sure, Dwight was their defensive anchor, but to imply that he carried the team almost by himself with basically bunch of scrubs is just ridiculous.
My take is more on heart though. Dwight plays hard and he's a great player, but his heart just isn't that much into the game, compare to Yao.
Dwight got owned every time he went against Yao, and Yao would've never given up on his team like the current Dwight has. Nuff said.
Yao is one of my favorite human beings in general of all time... but yall... really need to shut the hell up about Dwight Vs Yao. He has absolutely nothing to do with this. Orlando Dwight and Houston Yao have absolutely **** to do with Houston Dwight or Future Dwight. I swear some of you just bring up the most asinine things.
Is this supposed to contradict his statement? He clearly said playoffs and you clearly used regular season and a head to head matchup which is apples to oranges from what he said.
