We're not looking at the whole picture. If Juwon Howard would never have gotten injured, we would have had a very good shot at finishing a higher seed than Dallas and having home court advantage in this series. But regardless, he would have been a huge difference maker. Wasn't he the high scorer or the second highest scorer in one of the regular season victories against the Mavericks? We keep thinking about what we would do to react to and guard Dirk and the rest of the Dallas squad. What about having them react to and guard us? Avery Johnson would not have gone "small" as much if our "big" offense was torching their "small" defense. The key to winning is making the other team play your game. We were forced to play Dallas's speed game, and we lost bigtime. But with Juwon in the lineup, we would have changed the pace of the game and won in 4 or 5 (and possibly had home court advantage).
do you really want Chandler? I mean after that boneheaded play in the last game against the wizards? You're down by 3 with 5 seconds left and he shoots a fadeaway jumper at the freethrow line? i know we want someone athletic in here...but chandler has made some dumb plays in that series
We lost games 3, 4 and 5 by 4, 4 and 3 points, respectively. I think the impact Juwan has would have put us over in at leat one of those games. I think if we get him back plus a defensive minded 4 to play behind him and add a little speed at the 1, we would be just about set. I think we only need a little retooling now, not a major overhaul.
If we had Juwon howard it would still be difficult but we would have enough rotation at the 4 to keep it fresh. Howard would make the most impact on the offensive boards. He had been doing a great job of rebounding before he got hurt. It would cut down their 2nd chance points but most of all if he was able to get the offensive board it would be enough to force dallas to match-up with us instead of us having to play small ball with Dallas. Also it'd give us another low post option as well. Juwon can't guard Josh but heck they had Yao and dikembe on howard most of the time. Just give him some space. Josh is not going to shoot it and hit it in high percentages. He's a streaky shooter at best. His game is cutting and slashing. But importantly Josh cannot guard Juwon on the block. YOu'd see more nowitzi/dampier which plays in our favor and since dampier was in foul trouble a lot you'd see more bradly. Their speed would be negated or lessened due to matchups. Would it have worked all the time? Probably not but I believe it would have played in our favor for the most part. Having Juwon also would keep bowen fresher to run around like a mad man and allow padgett to stay fresh for a few screen and rolls with t-mac.
For those who say Howard wouldnt have made a difference hmm... think for a while can he make a 15 footer was he bringing in 10 + boards every few games he would have a great game. He would have done just as good a job as Padgett and Bowen would have been comming off the bench to stop Dirk, Dirk had a bad series because of Bowen in game 1 and some of game 2 and Mcgrady the rest of the way. Howard would have made a huge difference because better rebounder than who we had out there and could score 20 + on any given night but also could put up 5 pts. but it still would have been a totally different series JVG would have done some special D for Dirk if we had Howard.
Juwan would have had little more impact than our other forwards would have had. If the mavs would have stayed with the big, conventional lineup that they went with earlier in the series, then yeah, JH would have made more of a difference. But the small lineup makes JH almost as useless as the other pfs were.
Juwan would've guarded Dirk a hell of a lot better in the first quarters than Padgett did. Juwan would've gotten a lot of key rebounds in 4th quarters that could've given us a win in Games 3,4,5 Juwan would've given us another avenue of offense with his efficient post-up game inside. When we needed a high percentage shot from some one other than TMac/Yao, I would have rather had Juwan's fundamentals and experience in the paint as opposed to Sura and Mike James having to create something out of nothing out on the perimeter. Juwan's mid-range jumper would've free'd up Yao more inside as well. Bowen made a few during the series but it was not enough. Juwan would have consistently made Dallas pay for cheating off of him. I think we would have beaten Dallas in 6 games with Juwan and had a shot at getting past the Spurs and to the Finals. As it stands now, several of our players are getting older (Deke, Wesley, Barry) and I'm not too sure what we will be able to do next postseason. Unless we can add some key pieces this coming year, it's looking like Howard's freak illness may have cost us our best chance at a deep playoff run for the time being until the $20M in deadweight contracts on our payroll expires out.
I think it would have helped a lot for two reasons: 1. Rest for TMac--this is actually the key 2. Making them defend Howard instead of laying off Bowen But the series was still there for the taking, which shows how ridiculous TMac was.
i guess while we are talking about juwon you have to wonder how much a healthy bob sura would have meant. it was just another hit to our poor depth and sura was a very important player for us.
So do you think Dallas would have not guarded Howard like they didn't guard Bowen. If they would have I like Howard shooting an open 15 footer over Bowen
Losing you starting PF can never be a good thing. Juwon Howard would definitely have made a difference. We were starting freakin' Clarence Weatherspoon and Ryan Bowen for gawd sakes!
It absolutely would have been a different outcome. First, there's his rebounding... as little as Dirk was rebounding in this series to begin with, Howard would have been even more effective on the glass. Second, I recall Howard absolutely torching the Mavs in January -- they left him open for those 15-18' shots at the elbow, and once he got hot, it didn't matter that they started guarding him. He ended up with about 27 points, right? He's also just a smart player out there when playing with the rest of the vets. I don't recall seeing many games in the second half of the season where Juwon cost us a game with bad decision-making or shot selection. He knew when to pass to Yao or the other open men. Even if you leave out the bad officiating, games 3-5 were lost because of poor rebounding and inability to hit those mid-range shots (and the threes, but that's another story... I don't think we would have been taking as many 3s with Juwon out there). We would never have gone 7 games with the Mavs because we would have beat them in 4 or 5 at the most.
Regardless, how difficult the matchup would've been if Juwan's guarding Dirk, he is our 3rd most talented players on the roster, and still a border-line star that can step up if needed. We got very little prodcution from the 4 spot without him. Game7, the big part of reason of loss was weak play of 4. So there is no question Juwan would help us big time. I only wish we didnt trade MoTay so quick.
I hate "what if" scenarios. There's really no way to tell how this team would have looked if Howard wasn't injured. Yeah, the Rockets would have more talent, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would have played any better than did. The way the Rockets were playing to end the regular season, I don't really think Juwan would have made much of a difference. The chemistry that the Rockets played with during that 9 game win streak, including the 2 victories in Dallas, was the best it's been all season. If Juwan was there, maybe that chemistry wouldn't have developed and that 9 game win streak wouldn't have happened.
Man, Howard is our 3rd best player. I'm saying he could've done a better job on Dirk, but his rebounding and scoring would've really helped. He is one of four guys on this team that can score one-on-one (Yao, T-Mac, and James being the others). Defense is turned up in the playoffs and you need guys who can get it done by themselves when there's 7 seconds left on the clock. I think a lot of people on this board underestimate Juwan. He's not an all-star and he's not worth that $100 million he got, but he can be a big piece on a championship team.
The chemistry the team had with Juwon was much better than the chemistry Houston had at the end. The team near the end of the season had incredible chemistry but it all relied on our shooting. We became a big 3 pt shooting team. If we weren't making those then it'd be tough for us to win. With juwon we were getting a lot of free points from offensive rebounds and getting extra shots which would allow our defense to play less. Chemistry being the same on both teams with and without Juwon, I'd rather have had juwon. he gives us another aspect to utilize against teams. Yao and Juwon were pretty good and playing off each other. Juwon would get the O-bound off of yao's missed shots and Yao would do the same for Juwon. Padgett and bowen were able to keep the ball alive at times but couldn't put the ball back as well as juwon. Plus Juwon would get to the line much more than bowen and padgett put together. That was huge in my opinion.
