Dwight Howard finds his playoff redemption in LA
LOS ANGELES — As Dwight Howard made the familiar walk out of the Staples Center late Thursday night, there was a sense of satisfaction in his voice that was never there during those infamous Lakers days.
They had some good times, to be sure, never moreso than the end of the 2012-13 campaign when the ill-fated Howard-Kobe Bryant pairing led the Lakers to 28 wins in their final 40 games of the regular season. It all came crashing down from there, though, with Bryant's Achilles tendon tearing at the worst of times and Howard's reputation being shredded in the aftermath.
But not since Howard carried the Orlando Magic to the Finals in 2009 had he led an effort like this, his Houston Rockets doing the unthinkable by rallying from a 19-point deficit to down the stunned Los Angeles Clippers 119-107 in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals. Howard headed it all, anchoring a Rockets defense that forced the Clippers to miss 27 of their final 32 attempts while orchestrating a 42-13 run that surely left the locals wondering why this tortured franchise always finds a way to slip on the banana when it matters most.
The fact that it happened at all was reason enough to make Clippers owner Steve Ballmer ask for a refund on his $2 billion purchase of this haunted team. The fact that it happened with the Rockets' MVP candidate, James Harden, on the bench was another matter entirely.
"I didn't even think about (how special it was) at the time," Howard, who had 21 points, 21 rebounds and two blocks in 40 minutes, told Paste BN Sports. "I was really just trying to hold back tears because I want to win so badly. These moments like this can define who you are and who your team is. We showed a lot of character tonight by not quitting when we had every reason to give up. Down by 20, guys aren't playing good, I'm missing free throws, bricking free throws. But instead of me quitting, instead of our team quitting, we found a way to get the win."
When Howard returned to the floor in mid-March from the knee injury that cost him two months of the regular season, he made a point to give Harden an all-important message: don't change. The Rockets were rolling as they were constructed back then, with Harden carrying the heaviest of loads and the idea that Howard would start demanding the ball down low seen as nothing but an unwanted obstacle to their success.
Harden lauded Howard's selflessness, and that gesture paid dividends as Houston wound up securing the No. 2 seed that seemed so out of reach when they lost pivotal players like Patrick Beverley, Kostas Papanikolaou, and Donatas Motiejunas to season-ending injuries. The Rockets' resident wiseman, veteran/NBA champion Jason Terry, had implored the dynamic duo to realize the benefits of putting the group ahead of the individual in a meeting that set the tone for their home stretch.
But things changed this time around, as Harden was misfiring (he finished 5 of 20 from the field with a minus-21 rating) and the Rockets found themselves on the verge of another postseason disappointment. Enter Howard, who joined his childhood friend from Atlanta, forward Josh Smith, and Corey Brewer, Trevor Ariza and Terry to put together the most furious finish their franchise has ever seen. According to the Houston Chronicle, the 13-point deficit the Rockets faced entering the fourth quarter was the largest they'd ever faced in a playoff win.
Howard doesn't remember exactly when he started truly believing they could pull this game off, but he admitted there was a Hollywood component to their comeback that was too good to be true for the man who used to live just off of Mulholland Drive. Earlier in the day, he had watched a scene from the 2009 movie, Invictus, a Clint Eastwood-directed film about the 1995 South African rugby team that won the World Cup with the inspirational backing of then-president Nelson Mandela.
Howard, who used to routinely discuss his love of the cinema with the Los Angeles media members who thought he'd be there until the end of his career, admitted that the movie entered his mind during the most meaningful moments of Game 6.
"There was a scene on there, where he told all the guys to look at him, look into his eyes, and feel that desire that he had, and they went in there and won," Howard said. "That's the same moment I had tonight. I huddled the guys up, and didn't say exactly what he said. I just told the guys, 'We don't quit. No surrender. No retreat. Whatever we've got to do to win this game, let's do it.' We got the win."
Against all odds, to say the least.
When it was all over, the Clippers' karma that seemed to be turning was the same as it ever was. The fans who started believing this series was over after that ugly Game 4 win and 3-1 series lead had to pick their jaws up off the floor. The Clippers had looked like the superior team, but Howard and the Rockets found a way to make it happen in the most improbably of ways.
"That's understandable (that people counted them out), but we all have a choice," Howard said. "And the choice is to either fold and just end our season, or fight. That's mainly what we did. I know a lot of people thought that we were done. Even a couple of my friends, they were upsetting me because they said it seemed like it's over with. I just said, 'We don't quit. We don't quit. That's not what we do.' But we worked too hard, and I've done come too far to quit on myself, to quit on my team.
"Everybody was saying, you've got to focus on what you can do to help this team. And it stops with me and it finishes with me. Just try to show these guys on the floor, in the locker room, that I'm with them 100 percent. I'm going to give up my body, my mind and my spirit, whatever I can to help get the win."
