Dwight Howard seems set to return from his knee ailments that he’s been facing all season long. It’s been a long time coming and the Houston Rockets couldn’t be happier. They’ve managed to currently hold the the 3 seed in the Western Conference by 2.5 games over the Portland Trail Blazers. Without Howard for a big chunk of the season, without Terrence Jones, who was out, came back and is back on the shelf and now possibly Patrick Beverley for the final stretch of the season, the Rockets have relied on one man.
James Harden has fueled the Rockets all season and he’s been the driving force behind Houston’s success. His play all season long has him leading in the NBA MVP talks. Now when one player has been virtually doing it all by himself all season and has been carrying the load on scoring whenever he wants there would be a strong cause for concern about a guy returning from injury that might put a monkey wrench in the operation for Harden’s scoring.
Dwight Howard is an obvious scoring threat for the Rockets but it seems like star center is willing to adapt to Harden’s success this season.
Following from USA Today’s Sam Amick.
“He said, ‘I’ll be returning soon, but I don’t want you to change your game,” Harden told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. “He said, ‘I don’t want you to do anything different. Just go out there and do what you do, and do it at a high level every single night.’ He said, ‘I’ll adjust to you,’ and that right there gave me confidence to just play, and play my game and not worry about anything else. Once you hear that from your other leader, then you know you can just go out there and play the way that I’ve been playing.
“I definitely needed to hear that, and he told it to me. So right there that gave me all the confidence in the world, not to try to force it to get him into a rhythm or try to do anything forceful. I can just play my game. Him telling me that just gave me the green light to just go out there and just be the James Harden that I’ve been being all season.”
A sigh of relief just came over the Rockets faithful. Seeing that Howard is understanding and knows that Harden is doing his thing and he won’t look to slow ‘The Beard’ down, is great. Howard can score on his own for sure, he can do things in the post and out muscle most NBA centers but for now he’ll have to take a back seat. It’ll help Howard’s road back from this injury as well, getting acclimated to how Houston’s offense goes right now and it’ll get him ready for the playoff run.
