Dwight Discussion: D12 felt marginalized by MDA (989)

Doc Brown wrote:Yea he definitely doesn't have his legs under him completely right now. You can tell that in his dunks. But he does have his upper body strength, he rocked Meyers Leonard tonight pretty good and that dude is 7 foot, 250.

Still had a beast game though that's for sure.

That's why we need to do more fastbreaks and P&R. He doesn't have the lift, but he still has his mobility.

Doc Brown wrote:Yea he definitely doesn't have his legs under him completely right now. You can tell that in his dunks. But he does have his upper body strength, he rocked Meyers Leonard tonight pretty good and that dude is 7 foot, 250.

Still had a beast game though that's for sure.

watching him try to dunk right now is cringe worthy. only on alley oops does he look decent dunking. i'm hoping for december to see the real dwight howard. this was just like a rough cut that hasn't been edited yet.

revgen wrote:
That's why we need to do more fastbreaks and P&R. He doesn't have the lift, but he still has his mobility.

has some of his mobility. definitely not all of it. he definitely ran the floor faster when healthy in orlando. at least we see he'll be able to be effective even when his athleticism leaves him

I think I mentioned last night that his misses looked alot better than they did when he was shooting FTs in Orlando. Now they're mostly lined up but just too long (atleast last night they were, I didnt get to watch much of the game tonight), whereas before they were off badly in every direction. Step in the right direction.

I certainly dont see him shooting them as well as he did tonight over the course of the season, but even more so not like he did vs Dallas. Hopefully he'll be at worst slightly above his career average at the end of the season. 60% (or greater) isn't too much to ask.

The rest of his game will get alot better with time, which is crazy because he's already looking impressive and he's not near 100%.

last stand wrote:

revgen wrote:
That's why we need to do more fastbreaks and P&R. He doesn't have the lift, but he still has his mobility.

has some of his mobility. definitely not all of it. he definitely ran the floor faster when healthy in orlando. at least we see he'll be able to be effective even when his athleticism leaves him

I don't remember him running faster in Orlando.

kudos to dwight in coming back from last night and making his free throws. hope he can keep that up.

unfortunately it was wasted.

revgen wrote:

last stand wrote:

revgen wrote:
That's why we need to do more fastbreaks and P&R. He doesn't have the lift, but he still has his mobility.

has some of his mobility. definitely not all of it. he definitely ran the floor faster when healthy in orlando. at least we see he'll be able to be effective even when his athleticism leaves him

I don't remember him running faster in Orlando.

Well that's not really something we can argue. I know he's definitely not reacting to things quickly right now. Something that'll take time

Dwight's been passing pretty well in this offense. Better than Bynum could have, that's for sure.

^Hard to say for sure since we are actually cutting off the ball in this offense. There was no offball movement at all last season. All ISO's and everybody standing around.

33 & 14 in his 2nd regular season game coming off of back surgery??? Guy is a complete beast man, free throws & all for this game.

Dwight was a Monster 31pts, 12 rebs, 5 Assists & Made 15 out of 19 at the line

lakersStan24 wrote:Dwight was a Monster 31pts, 12 rebs, 5 Assists & Made 15 out of 19 at the line

No.. he had 33 points and 14 rebounds.

He also was played way to many minutes in my opinion.. no reason this guy should be putting in playoff minutes 2nd game into the season off a back injury.

Hardwood Paroxysm ‏@HPbasketball
Dwight's rotations... sooo sloooow..

Noam Schiller ‏@noamschiller
If you're wondering "how can Dwight's back hurt his D but not his offense", well, look at his new point guard's last 10 years.

Noam Schiller ‏@noamschiller
And this is a huge point of contention for the Lakers, because if Dwight can't play D, they could be a bottom 10 defensive team.

Should we be more concerned that he may not be the same guy defensively? Do you think it's conceivable that he won't be the same even as the season wears on?

The whole team is slow on D. Not just Dwight. It's like they don't even know their rotation patterns.

Another thing is when Dwight contests a shot, there is no one fighting to get the rebound (Pau).

^That's been going on before Dwight even came here.

I thought the defensive game plan was really simple with Dwight in there?

Play your man, and let Dwight anchor. The Lakers seemed a step slow in covering their men and got cut off on screens numerous times.

Question is, was Dwight able to anchor?

We've now faced 2 fresh teams on their Game 1 who came out and shot lights out on us....tough perimeter shots. My thinking is that this won't be the case for much longer. Teams will come in with more tired legs and not be able to shooting crazy perimeter percentages on us like the Dallas and Portland did.

If we can just get a handle on the turnovers, we can give ourselves a better shot to win.

I agree with you..
This won't really continue...
True test are the Clips

Finwë wrote:

Hardwood Paroxysm ‏@HPbasketball
Dwight's rotations... sooo sloooow..

Noam Schiller ‏@noamschiller
If you're wondering "how can Dwight's back hurt his D but not his offense", well, look at his new point guard's last 10 years.

Noam Schiller ‏@noamschiller
And this is a huge point of contention for the Lakers, because if Dwight can't play D, they could be a bottom 10 defensive team.

Should we be more concerned that he may not be the same guy defensively? Do you think it's conceivable that he won't be the same even as the season wears on?

Not yet, he's been running and jumping for only about 2 months, after doing nothing for 6. Defense is the last thing to come back as its the most physically taxing. If he's still unable to get up or play defense in 2-3 months and has shown no improvement then worry

He will never be 100% this season. He has to have a full offseason to lift and train

Just look at Bynum. Bynum improved as the 2010-2011 season went on recovering from knee surgery, but it wasn't until he had a full offseason to train again.

He can get back to most of what he was in season just by playing games and lifting throughout the season but still won't be all the way there. Just not enough rest time to allow the lifts count

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:I agree with you..
This won't really continue...
True test are the Clips

What's up with this three liners man?

Though still a step slow on rotations, Dwight contested shots last night. Someone else running beside him didn't box out or didn't put in the Mike Brown Effort to get the defensive rebound after the forced miss (name rhymes with Pow).

Doc Brown wrote:It's kind of hard when you have Shrugs and porous perimeter D to play great defense. It's not D12, just like it wasn't Bynum last year.

D12/Drew contest, everyone stands and watches, offensive rebound, score. Perimeter D is non-existent, D12/Drew contests, dish for an easy bucket.

Pure laziness across the board.

That's definitely part of it, but he wasn't working with much better in Orlando. He still is slow

Assistant coach Steve clifford told stu and bill that Dwight looks 2 steps slow right now. That does effect us defensively. 2 steps is a lot considering the saying is a step slow