Dwight Howard is finally closing in on a return to the Houston Rockets after missing the last 22 games with swelling in his troublesome right knee.
Howard, now 29 years old, participated in parts of Houston’s practice on Monday (video), and both star guard James Harden and head coach Kevin McHale said they were pleased with what they saw from the franchise’s star big man. Howard has been traveling with the team, working out and participating in two-on-two drills for some time, but Monday marked a significant step in the form of his return to practice.
“He didn’t have a hard practice today,” coach Kevin McHale told reporters. “He was able to do some things. It was good to see him out there. Now he’s just got to get comfortable.
“At this stage, this is the start of coming back. Up to this point, he hasn’t really been on the floor. Everything he’s done has been strengthening the knee, resting the knee, trying to get the inflammation out of the knee and all that stuff. Now we’ll see how he feels after he does some basketball stuff.”
Howard, who first suffered a bone bruise on the knee during training camp, has missed 34 games and counting this season during two different lengthy absences. In early February, Howard received a bone marrow aspirate injection in the knee, and the Rockets said he was likely to miss six to eight weeks. That timetable is now close to being up.
ESPN‘s Ramona Shelburne and Calvin Watkins report that the goal is for Howard to play about 10 regular-season games before the playoffs begin, meaning he could still miss another 10 days or so. But Houston’s schedule, rather than the injury, could be the driving factor. The Rockets play six times over the next 11 days, and of those games, four come against teams with losing records (Magic, Nuggets, Pacers, Wolves) and a fifth is against the fading Suns. Four of the six are also at home.
In other words, since the team is likely a prohibitive favorite in those games even without Howard, why rush him back and subject him to potentially unnecessary wear and tear?
Houston’s schedule stiffens beginning with a Sunday afternoon game on March 29 in Washington. Should Howard return then, it would give him exactly 10 games prior to the playoffs — which would match Shelburne’s timetable on the dot.
It’s not as if the Rockets have fallen apart without Howard, of course. They’re 22-10 (.688) with Howard and 22-12 (.647) without him, due in large part to the ongoing MVP-level exploits from Harden. Even with Howard missing over half the season, the 44-22 Rockets are still No. 4 in the West and closer to the 2nd seed than they are the 5th seed.
But their deficiencies on the glass have caught up with them of late. In back-to-back losses last week, Portland and Utah each outrebounded the Rockets by 20, with replacement center Donatas Motiejunas collecting just 3.5 boards per game. Motiejunas isn’t a great rebounder to begin with, averaging just 5.9 in 28 minutes per game, and the increased workload of his first NBA season as a starter could be wearing him down.
On the other hand, Howard — even while battling through ongoing knee problems this year — has averaged 11 rebounds per game in just 32 minutes. And with his return imminent, the star big man says he feels “more explosive” now than he has all year.
“I’m a little bit more explosive right now,” Howard said last week. “Since the time we started working out until now, I’ve seen a significant difference with my total body.”
The Rockets turned it around without Howard on Sunday, posting an impressive road win over the Clippers and their imposing front line of Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. But even in that win, the Clippers outrebounded the Rockets by seven, and Jordan won the board battle with Motiejunas by a whopping 20 to 6. The reason the Rockets were able to get the victory was a virtuoso performance from Harden, who scored 34 points on just 16 shots and also added 7 rebounds and 7 assists.
As great as Harden is, he needs more help if the Rockets are going to make a deep playoff run through the loaded West. That’s where Howard comes in, and it looks like it’ll be sooner rather than later.
BLATT FOCUSES ON SECOND SEED, WHILE LEBRON PRIORITIZES HEALTH
Entering the final month of their season, Cleveland head coach David Blatt has his eye on the No. 2 seed entering the playoffs. That would mean home-court advantage for the Cavs (43-26) over all East opponents except for No. 1 Atlanta (53-14).
“We got to finish in second place,” Blatt said Monday after the Cavs’ 106-92 loss to the Miami Heat, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.
It’s a reasonable goal for the Cavs, who are now two games ahead of both Toronto and Chicago. But star forward LeBron James, who played Monday night despite a tweaked right knee, sore lower back and sprained right wrist, seems to have a different set of priorities:
“The coaching staff, if that’s what they want, but for me, I never play for seeding. I just play,” [LeBron] said. “And wherever at the end of the season we land, I’m ready. Just get me in the playoffs. Get me in the playoffs, I feel like I can win on anybody’s floor. I feel like I can win at home. I’m that confident in my ability and our team’s ability. So I’ve never in my 12-year career played for seeding. That’s just not how I work.”
“Health. Health and chemistry. We got to continue to build our chemistry. We’re a young group, as far as cohesiveness on the floor. So we got to continue to build that, and we got to be healthy during the playoffs.”
Though Blatt is paying lip service to the idea of earning the top possible seed, it seems to be LeBron’s vision playing out. The Cavs rested Kevin Love on their Florida trip vs. both the Magic and Heat.
What could be even more interesting is the potential for a playoff matchup of LeBron’s new Cavaliers against his former Heat and old friend Dwyane Wade. After Monday’s win, the Heat (30-36) joined Indiana in a virtual tie for the No. 7 seed. That would mean a first-round matchup for Miami against the Cavs, should Cleveland accomplish Blatt’s goal of holding onto the No. 2 seed.
“If it happens, it happens, then we got to go out there, and we got to prepare ourselves the best way,” James said when asked about the possibility of a Cleveland-Miami series. “They are playoff-tested — we’re not. So it would be a tough challenge for us, and we’ll be ready for it, if it so happens.”
The Cavs lost both of their regular-season meetings in Miami by double digits.
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE NBA
Atlanta sharpshooter Kyle Korver will miss at least two more games for the Hawks after undergoing a procedure to repair his broken nose.
Korver broke his nose in Atlanta’s win over the Lakers on Sunday night and missed their following game, a 110-103 win in Sacramento, on Monday night.
The Hawks said in a press release that Korver was fitted for a custom protective mask and would be evaluated after the team’s next two games.
The Hawks have an enormous 11-game lead over the Cavs for the East’s No. 1 seed, so the injury won’t impact the standings. But unfortunately for fans, it does mean the Hawks (53-14) will be short-handed for Wednesday night’s showdown with the nationally-televised Warriors (53-13).
The winner of that Atlanta-Golden State game will have the league’s best record, thus putting itself in a strong position to secure home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, including the NBA Finals.
Later Tuesday, the Warriors announced that they, too, will be shorthanded due to Klay Thompson’s absence with a sprained right ankle. Golden State says Thompson will be reevaluated in 7-to-10 days..
The Nuggets were competitive in a 92-81 loss to the Grizzlies on Monday night, but they realistically had no chance with interim head coach Melvin Hunt resting starters Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried and Danilo Gallinari.
Wilson Chandler, a veteran forward who was rested himself the prior night during a win over New Orleans, doesn’t appear pleased by the strategy. When asked whether he expects a full roster for Denver’s next game on Thursday night in Houston, Chandler said:
“I have no idea what they are going to do,” Chandler told Denver Post beat writer Chris Dempsey. “Whoever is on the court just has to keep playing. It’s the nature of the business. I’m not a GM; I don’t know what’s going on. It’s tough when you’re fighting together but you’re getting set up for failure.”
Asked what he thought about sitting, Faried said “no comment.”
The Nuggets (26-42) are now 6-3 since replacing former head coach Brian Shaw with Hunt, but Dempsey says the team is expected to continue resting players for the remainder of the season.
Ben DuBose is a veteran sports reporter who has followed the Houston Rockets and the NBA since Hakeem Olajuwon was Akeem Olajuwon. He writes for both SheridanHoops and ClutchFans, an independent Rockets blog. You can follow him on Twitter.