The Golden State Warriors are 3 more games away from the NBA Finals. This is because the Houston Rockets blew an 11 point lead in the first half, but kept close. Who left in the first half due to bumping knees with Josh Smith? Dwight Howard. Howard has been injury stricken for this entire year, missing almost 3 months for the Houston Rockets, who now happen to be in the Western Conference Finals.
According to Mercury News Carl Steward, quoted anecdotes from Dwight and Mchale on his injury:
“I want to do whatever I can to help this team, but I can’t help the team if I’m hurt.”
McHale said he isn’t sure what adjustments he’ll have to make if Howard can’t play.
“We’ll deal with that (Thursday), I’m not sure what it’s going to be,” he said. “I’m not going to speculate. We’ll see where Dwight’s at tomorrow and make our adjustments accordingly. I want Dwight to play tomorrow, but today is not tomorrow, and we’ll find out what that is tomorrow.”
If he doesn’t play Game 2, Howard was asked if he expected to return later in the series.
“Yeah, no doubt,” he said. “It was very painful to play last night. The coaches felt like it was best that I sit out the rest of the game. I tried to play on it, but there was really nothing I could do.”
Howard said he was in “some pretty good pain” Wednesday. He underwent an MRI exam and has been icing the knee and has basically been resting.
“I’ve got the rest of today and part of tomorrow, so we’ll see come game time,” he said.
“I want to do whatever I can to help this team, but I can’t help the team if I’m hurt.”
The Rockets play game 2 on Thursday in the Oracle Arena again. The Rockets played a great game and competed with the Warriors throughout the game, but without Howard, the teams do not matchup well for the Rockets. They will need him to even compete in this series.
