If Juwon Howard were not injured, where would we be right now? I think we would have won this series. It would have been a 4-1 or a 4-2 win for the Rockets. Basically, we were playing 5 on 4 at one end of the court for the entire series and we did pretty darn good considering. We would have had the exact same weakness against Dallas (youth and athleticism), but Howard would have masked Yao's foul problems, and would have alleviated second chance points and some other minor problems that grew as the series went on. Can you imagine if Yao had more minutes on the court, and Howard were cleaning the boards and hitting his jumpers? I think the team was overachieving throughout the series and the rubberband just snapped tonight..... but with Howard in the lineup, this series would not have gone long enough for us to be exposed like we finally were tonight.
Although Howad is not one of the better PFs in the league, the talent level between Howard and Bowen/Pagget is huge. I don't even know if Bowen and Padgett would make playorr roster on other playoff teams.
We would have beat them in Dallas to finish this series....in game 5. Howard might not be a defender but he would have spread their defense just enough to keep them honest. When you have Dirk not caring about defending your PF, you'd be in a world of hurt. And believe it or not, Howard would have been a good enough rebounder to have actually made a difference down there.
On the contrary: if Juwon Howard started at the PF position for us, and we were forced to have him on the floor guarding Dirk, then this series would not have been even close to a Game 7. Shutting down Dirk through McGrady's All-NBA first team defense in the series gave us a CHANCE at winning the series in a Game 7. Ryan Bowen did a good job defensively on Dirk as well, and without that defense to shut the guy down for an ENTIRE series we wouldn't have even had a chance for one last game to advance to the 2nd round. So I think it has been a blessing in disguise. What this team needs is a DEFENSIVE monster at the 4. That is exactly why I want a Tyson Chandler type and not a Stromile Swift. I think Stro is not committed enough to winning/playing consistent defense. The guy would be a problem maker. I think Chandler is the idea 4 you want to have on this team that can rebound like crazy and block and, most importantly, taking the defensive load off Yao. If Chandler takes less than $8 mill offer this off season, we should right away go after him and sign him, I don't care if Les has to make that extra cash payment since he has been making crazy money this year, so time to spend some of that cash for the sake of our future. Chandler is the idea, but I won't b**** if we get Stro instead, although he wouldn't be the type that puts us over the top.
I remember that when the news broke about his heart infection, I cursed and thought to myself that it was the nail in the coffin of our championship hopes. Then we recovered and I thought we might somehow pull it out anyway. But in the end, even if it wasn't the reason we lost this series, it was a big reason why we found ourselves with no answers for a very deep opponent.
Dallas would still be the deeper, more athletic, more talented team.... but Houston stole the first 2 before Dallas even knew what hit them. If Howard were here, I feel confident that the Rocket's offense would have played well enough to pull out those close games. Now if it were a 9 game series.... Dallas.
Like Gene Peterson says, "Bingo". Depth at the PF killed us. Juwon Howard would have given us enough to probably close out games 3 & 4 and he would have had another chance to torch the Suns with his outside shooting. Bowen is at best an 11th/12th man on an NBA roster who is good at hustling and effort in practice. He helped us until Dirk figured him out and we had to put T-Mac on him. Find me any starter in any playoff game this year who was weaker than Bowen.
Are you kidding? Dirk wouldve fouled him out in about 5 minutes. The one big advantage of TMac guarding Dirk was that TMac is a bigger superstar than Dirk and can really guard him close. Everytime anyone other than TMac guards him, Nowitzki gets to the foul line. No way the refs were going to foul out TMac. Howard wouldve been toast.
I'm not just saying this because it's the homer thing to say, but with Juwan, we win this series. For those who disagree, just imagine him in place of his replacements. Ryan Bowen bricks a 15 footer off a T-Mac pass? Juwan would have nailed it. Josh Howard blows by Padgett for a dunk? Juwan could have stayed with him slightly better...maybe funneled him into Yao/Dikembe. I'd say Juwan was the third(Maybe fourth, as Wesley provided some great shooting, perimeter defense) most important player to the team in the series.
I agree. Juwon was a real keystone to the team's chemistry and offense. He didn't dominate in any area, but he provided competant skills in areas that we have to replace with 3 separate backup players. Weatherspoon - rebounding Padgett - offense Bowen - defense
Here's the way I look at it... If we had Howard, we might have WON game 3! After that, who knows? It could have turned the series in our favor. We might have won the serise 4-1 or 4-2. You just never know how those things go.... The negative is that we still could have lost a game 7 if the Mavs exploited our depth...but by not so much. In the end, our bench/speed/rebounding is still a problem. And would have caught up to us sooner or later (Spurs/Suns).
T-Mac would not have guarded Dirk for 48 minutes if Juwan was there. Bottomline is we didn't have one of our major weapons. He's the third most talented player of the team and he would have made a difference. Juwan will be another option for us next year or he could be a very good asset to trade for a JVG PF. Congratulations to the hardest working team in the NBA. They met my expectations. Not everybody can win the championship, but it is good to know that they gave it their best shot and fought to the end.
There should be little question if JH was healthy we would have beat the Mavs. The difference between JH and Bowen/Padget is huge, and as a result in addition to getting much less production from the 4 spot we had to go small a lot more. It put so much more pressure and wear and tear on everyone, particularly--Tmac, Wesley, Barry, Deke--where at the end those guys had nothing left for game 7. (Heck, had we had MoT in the fold and playing well we probably win the series.) So yes, with JH we beat the Mavs, should not be much of question considering the cloeseness of games 3-5 loses. Do I think we could be competing for an NBA championship? No. Possibly if Sura and JH and everyone else was in their peak physical shape and mid season form we might have had a chance, but that is counting on everything going right physically.
The offense seemed to click a lot better when Howard was in the lineup. After he was gone our offense was not as balanced as it used to be and we had to rely on McGrady more.
Yep, he was a solid 3rd option and we knew what we were going to get nite in and nite out. It would have taken some of the scoring pressure off T-mac and Yao
I think what is being overlooked is JH's ability to come on the court and play in the 5 when the Mavs went small. That is where they killed us and made their runs. TM could have still guarded Dirk and that would have left a little quicker smarter defender than Yao and DM guarding Daniels and Howard. There is your game 3, 4, and 5 difference right there and he would have still jump-hooked Howard to death in the post. That little bit off defense in those games swings those 2 and 4 point games and keeps Yao out of foul trouble. i Kept waiting for him to go with bowen on Howard when Dampier was out of the game but he only did that for about 5 minutes in game 6 and we made a big run and forced Dampier back in the game and never did it again.
