Houston Rockets Can Only Survive for so Long Without Dwight Howard
The Houston Rockets have quickly established themselves as one of this young season's most pleasant surprises, lifting off to a 13-4 record despite injuries to starters Dwight Howard, Patrick Beverley and Terrence Jones.
They're 4-3 without Howard, who's missed seven games this season, including the last six in a row on account of a knee injury. Though the team's overall record hasn't suffered dramatically as a result just yet, things may well get worse before they get better.
And that's because we really don't know when they'll get better.
"I want to get back out there now if I could, but I don’t think it's smart, uh for me to try to rush anything," Howard told reporters on Tuesday. "You know, when I'm 100 percent or when I'm close to it, that's when I'll play. I don't wanna give my teammates or this city nothing but the best, so I'm not gonna go out there until I'm ready to do everything I can do."
Thus the question marks about said return's time frame and just how much longer this club can remain afloat in the interim. The good news is that there's been some progress.
"It's basically the second day I was able to get out and do some sprints on the floor," Howard added. "Other than that, it's just been on the treadmill and doing some court work. So, today was a lot better than the past couple of days.
"A lot of the stuff is going away. We have to keep doing what I've been doing. The trainer (Jason Biles) has been doing a great job trying to get rid of the pain that I'm having around my knee, and we'll go from there."
The eight-time All-Star center remains doubtful for Wednesday's meeting with the 15-2 Memphis Grizzlies, a perennial dark-horse contender that currently holds the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. The Grizzlies decimated Houston by a 119-93 margin during their first faceoff this season, and that was with Howard in the lineup.
Without him, the Rockets have dropped games to the Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers. One might be able to dismiss the Lakers affair as something of an outlier, but defeats at the hands of the Clippers and Warriors highlight the enduring importance of this team's 28-year-old big man.
Regardless of what the standings might indicate for the moment, the Rockets aren't going anywhere without their anchor on the inside.
That's no slight to star shooting guard James Harden, who's been nothing short of brilliant amidst the various injuries.
Through 17 appearances, he's averaging 25.2 points, 6.2 rebounds and 6.7 assists per contest. He's tallied at least 32 points in three of his past six games (all sans Howard), including a revealing 95-92 victory against the much healthier 13-5 Dallas Mavericks.
But games against teams like Memphis remind us of the painfully obvious. Without an elite presence in the paint, opposing bigs like Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph are poised to exploit the most significant of Houston's admittedly few vulnerabilities.
Those two combined for just 23 points and made eight of their 21 field-goal attempts when Memphis blew out Howard and Co. in November. Without Howard around on Wednesday, they're likely to do a bit more damage.
Thrice named the league's Defensive Player of the Year, Howard can make a pivotal impact even without scoring at a particularly high rate. The 18.8 points he's averaged through 10 contests has certainly helped Houston's cause, but it's his 2.3 blocks per game that may be even more critical at a time like this.
Per NBA.com, Houston's opponents have only scored 90 points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor.
He's simultaneously responsible for containing the Gasol and Randolphs of the world while also serving as the last line of defense against slashers and cutters. Even when he doesn't officially record a block, his above-the-rim activity and 265-pound frame are credible deterrents against would-be scorers.
The Rockets' defensive pedigree certainly benefited from the addition of swingman Trevor Ariza via free agency this summer, but there's no substitute for imposing rim protection.
Houston's success may seem to suggest otherwise, but it's a small sample size and hardly indicative of the challenges that await. The West is absolutely stacked with title hopefuls and otherwise formidable foes. At the moment, seven teams have no more than five losses.
Good as the Rockets have had it so far, they certainly haven't been the only ones.
Setting themselves apart from the rest of a very deep pack will require a healthy Howard. Last week's 102-85 loss to the Clippers was Exhibit A. Blake Griffin went to work against Houston's porous interior, tallying 30 points and 10 rebounds in just 31 minutes of action. With talented bigs like LaMarcus Aldridge, Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins lurking out West, Houston can ill afford to rely on guys like Tarik Black to man the middle for much longer.
The 23-year-old Kansas product has surpassed expectations, but he's no rim protector.
And while it's become fashionable to bemoan Howard's relatively one-dimensional scoring ability, he still gets the job done well enough to serve as Houston's second option on the offensive end. His post game may leave something to be desired aesthetically, but a 57.5 percent success rate from the field doesn't lie.
So there's at least some urgency to his recovery. No, the Rockets haven't imploded, and they probably won't anytime soon. But the race for seeding will be as competitive as ever, and the importance of each win and loss is magnified accordingly.
"I'm trying to get my leg right," Howard told the Root Sports television broadcast on Saturday, via The Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen. "It's fine when I jump off or do anything with two feet, but once I try off the one foot, there's still a lot of pain. I'm trying to make sure I can play where I won't have that much pain."
Unfortunately, pain isn't bound by a particular timetable in this case.
According to Feigen, Howard, "underwent platelet-rich plasma therapy, an increasingly common procedure, to help relieve the pain and inflammation in his knee" a day after missing the Nov. 19 contest against the Lakers.
"It's basically a blood draw from yourself that you would take just like you were taking blood to send to a lab, but instead of sending it off, you basically centrifuge it in a spinning machine to separate red blood cells, white blood cells and the plasma layer," team physician Dr. Steven Flores told Feigen.
Flores explained that while the procedure won't regrow cartilage, it should help address pain and inflammation.
Even if Howard's pain recedes, however, there's still some concern his knee troubles will reappear. They've become something of a nuisance since training camp, which may explain in part why the organization appears to be taking his return to the floor so cautiously.
Indeed, patience may pay off in the long term. Much as the Rockets miss Howard now, they would miss him far more come April or May.
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