Remember when Dwight Howard was the unquestioned best big man in basketball? Those days are long gone. Every now and then, though, the Houston Rockets center can tap into the hyper-athleticism that once made him a perennial MVP candidate – and he’s doing it on Thursday night.
Early in his team’s must-win Game 3 against the Golden State Warriors, Howard is playing like his old self. He nearly tore the rim down on his first alley-oop slam, and followed it up moments later by running the floor hard and finishing a lob from James Harden with a towering one-handed dunk.
But it was defense that marked Howard’s rise to prominence in the mid-2000s. And while viewers were still smarting from aerial exploits on one end of the floor, the former Defensive Player of the Year embarrassed Festus Ezeli with a massive block on the other.
Can the Rockets beat the Warriors in the first round? Probably not. But with Steph Curry sitting on the sidelines and Howard dominating on both sides of the ball, Houston seems poised to win Game 3 and make this series at least somewhat interesting.
The Rockets lead Golden State by double digits late in the first quarter.
