James Harden, Dwight Howard Face Potentially Career-Defining Moments Ahead

From tipoff, the Houston Rockets looked different in Game 5 of their series against the Los Angeles Clippers. And it was James Harden and Dwight Howard who made them look that way.

Houston was blown out in Games 3 and 4, losing both by 25 or more points. It was only the fourth time in history a team was beaten that severely in consecutive games of a series, according to Basketball-Reference.com. The victims of the previous demolitions failed to win another postseason game.

That wasn’t the case Tuesday. The Rockets clobbered the Clippers 124-103. They went from being dominated to dominant and from lethargic to energetic. And it was primarily for two reasons: Howard and Harden.

Game 5

From the outset, it was clear the Rockets were approaching Game 5 with a different mentality and strategy than the two prior contests.

The Clippers ran their first play inside to DeAndre Jordan, who drew a foul on Howard. It was a legitimate foul, not one of those “Hack-a-Jordan” types. Jordan missed his freebies.

The next trip down for the Clippers, Matt Barnes attacked inside and Dwight Howard altered his shot at the rim.

The next possession, Blake Griffin went at Howard, but Howard forced Griffin to adjust his shot and it went off the iron. Griffin grabbed his own rebound, and the play went to J.J. Redick. He drove the lane, but as soon as Howard took a step to stop him, Reddick got scared, pulled up and fired an awkward floater.

Four shots at the rim resulted in zero points. 

The message had been sent: Not this time. The Rockets were going to play defense, not that pathetic hacking game. The Clippers would have to earn their points.

There would be no more free passes to the restricted area. In Game 4, the Clippers attempted 35 shots at the rim, according to NBA.com/Stats. At most, 18 of those were challenged. 

In Game 5, they attempted 34, and there were 36 contests from the Rockets, which means multiple players were defending some of them.

Howard was there all game. He challenged 14 shots at the rim by himself, and only six of those made it in. This was his dominion. Houston’s defensive rating with Howard on the court was just 102.4, compared to 108.7 without him. The Clippers' effective field-goal percentage in his presence was a mere 44.7.

James Harden had the same impact on the offense. He struggled a bit to start the game, scoring just four points and committing two turnovers in the first quarter. But in the second period, he got on track, scoring 14 points on seven shots with four rebounds and two assists.

Harden was positively bellicose. After the game, Harden explained that was the plan.

“We weren’t aggressive enough the first four games," Harden said, via Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. "We were timid. They have really good bigs. We made a conscious effort to go into attack mode.”

Not coincidentally, the second period was also when Houston really started pulling away. The Rockets won the frame by 10 and never looked back.

Harden scored 26 points on 20 attempts. Another 23 came from shots off his passes. And another six were from free-throw assists or secondary assists. That’s 55 points he created by himself. As a result, the Rockets' offensive rating while he was on the court was 131.7.

Harden also did it on the boards, grabbing 11 rebounds during the game.

With Howard controlling the defense and Harden the offense, the rest of the Rockets were propelled to excellence. They had a collective 59.4 effective field-goal percentage, compared to the Clippers' 46.7. The whole team had an electricity it lacked during the two previous outings. 

The "effort numbers" were huge in the Rockets' favor. They won the battle in the paint, 64-46. They outrebounded the enemy 58-39. And perhaps the most telling stat of the game was the 17-3 margin they boasted in fast-break points.  

All that points to the on-court leadership of Harden and Howard.

The Narrative

The stats back up the observation, but they don’t tell the whole story. Howard demanded that the Clippers respect his presence, even when he was doing something as simple as clearing a rebound. His physicality was manifest. He was Superman again.

Harden was a gladiator, fighting through illness. At the end of the game, he had to leave because he was having trouble breathing. It was a performance underscored by heart.

The Rockets’ duo struck back against the narrative which has been built against them.

Howard has a reputation that has evolved since his final year in Orlando. Eddie Maisonet of SB Nation did a nice job of chronicling Howard's tendency to attract hate, ranging from flip-flopping in Orlando to the clashes with Kobe Bryant that led to the “Dwight Coward” nickname.

Maisonet quotes Gary Payton as having perhaps the harshest criticism of all:

"

I think he’s disliked by a lot of players. What Dwight does is, you know you see all the smiles and all the antics, that is getting on player’s nerves. To get this guy, Kevin Durant, to do what he did, you know it’s starting to become a problem with players, because Kevin Durant doesn’t really talk to anybody … [Durant] goes at people that are fake with stuff. Only fake guys. Fake guys to me are when they’re always woofing, woofing, woofing, and they don’t really do nothing.

"

Meanwhile, Robert O’Connell wrote what can only be described as a visceral diatribe against Harden for Vice Sports, describing his efforts to embellish contact and draw fouls:

"

The flop tends to be an act of desperate improvisation, an attempt to wring points from a barren possession. Floppers pilfer points here and there, a couple at a time. Harden's approach is systematic. He tailors his drives not to end at the rim but to intersect with some poor rotating sap mid-stride, and at the point of collision lets go of something that only the most cloudy-headed academic could call a shot attempt. He halts without warning, and recovering guards slam into his back. His Eurostep throws a helping big into existential crisis: stay planted, and Harden will get to the rim; lift a foot even an inch, and he'll barrel into your chest, dust himself off, and recite a string of prepared arguments about the finer points of defensive position.

"

Setting aside that Harden’s reputation as a flopper is definitively overstated, he has gained a certain type of ill will from a large segment of fans.

He has had an understated but brilliant postseason so far. He’s averaging 26.6 points, 8.5 assists and 4.9 rebounds with a 64.5 percent true shooting percentage. The only other player to ever go for 25, eight and four on 60 percent true shooting was Larry Bird in 1986.

It’s like no one notices, though. The Rockets are losing, therefore Harden is supposedly struggling. Shea Serrano wrote for Grantland prior to Game 5:

"

Coming into the postseason, I didn’t want Harden to play well; I wanted him to play GREAT. Then I could root against him, root for his unraveling, and maybe, God willing, even sports-hate him, which is my very favorite thing. The most fun version of basketball — of anything, really — is when there’s a villain to fight against. And that’s who I was hoping James Harden would be. I needed him to be Bane, but instead, he’s been more like the Hamburglar.

It’s hard to sports-hate — at least in the sort of truly fulfilling manner I’d like to — a guy while he fizzles away into hydrogen molecules and beard remnants against the Clippers.

"

Numbers matched by no one other than Bird is “Hamburglar.” His averages of 24.8 points, 9.2 assists and 5.4 rebounds posted against the Clippers are “fizzling away into hydrogen molecules and beard remnants.” 

Because ultimately, in this overly binary sports world we’ve created, it doesn’t matter how well you play the game; it only matters if you win or lose.

A New Narrative?

Fairly or unfairly, Howard and Harden can be described as the most disliked pair of superstars in the league. And now they are presented with a chance to change that.

Coming out so aggressively in Game 5 and dominating the Clippers was a great start. It was historically unprecedented, but it wasn’t quite historic—yet—because they’re still down in the series.

Serrano’s position was that he wanted Harden to be a true “villain” he could really get behind hating. He closed by writing, “My ultimate dream right now is that this still happens, that Harden goes insane, drags the Rockets back into this series, dismantles Chris and Blake and DeAndre in Games 5, 6 and 7 and then shoves the rest of Los Angeles into the San Andreas Fault.”

If Harden dominates on the offensive side of the ball and Howard clamps down on the defensive end, the Rockets can fulfill Serrano’s dream. They would make history if they did.

And right now, that means going back to Los Angeles for Game 6. If Howard proves his courage in the City of Angels, the irony would be impossible to ignore, even for his most ardent of haters. For Harden, it’s the chance to prove his stats aren’t just empty box-score numbers.

The next game could change everything for the careers of both superstars. A win would put them on the precipice of what might be the greatest series comeback ever. That would be their defining moment. 

The Rockets’ duo has a chance to change perceptions and redefine who they are in the eyes of the public. They can wash away the hate in 48 minutes. And if they play Game 6 the way they did Game 5, that’s suddenly a very realistic scenario.

Statistics courtesy of NBA.com unless otherwise noted.