James Harden to Dwight Howard for the alley-oop (Video)
By Will Osgood
Early in the first quarter of the Rockets’ first playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks, MVP candidate James Harden found Dwight Howard for the nasty dunk.
It didn’t take long for the Dallas Mavericks to see the Houston Rockets do what they do best–that is give the ball James Harden, have center Dwight Howard set a screen at the top of the lane and then roll to the hoop.
The result was as predictable as it was beautiful.
Granted it wasn’t much of a screen set by Howard. Heck, it may not even have been a screen. The veteran big man didn’t touch anyone, but merely showed a screen like action.
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Still, the screen action had its intended effect for the Rockets. Harden shrugged off the “screen” by going right–which he’ll do about 40 percent of the time, forced a double team whereby Mavericks center Tyson Chandler was forced to rotate to Harden, leaving Howard wide open for the nasty flush.
If we hadn’t seen this sort of thing 100 times in the last two weeks of the regular season, this would be a top play. But it is simply a large, large part of the Houston offense. Yet no one can stop it.
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