Can the Charlotte Bobcats Successfully Defend Dwight Howard?

It’s kind of like writing the article, “Can you successfully defend Lebron James”. The body of that article would read something like “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” and if it was an audio podcast it would be in a sort of super villain voice. That being said, one of Dwight’s issues is he can get frustrated somewhat easily. Boston used to be able to do this very well, since they didn’t really “athletically” beat him on any given night but you could see that they were in his head. Despite their depth at the position and their ability to switch defenders all over the court, I don’t see Charlotte getting in Dwight’s head too much. But, as you point out, if they can somehow frustrate him and his rhythm that is the best chance they have at extending the series and possibly pulling an upset.

Credit to those guys (like Anderson in the video), because I can’t remember too many times where Dwight’s passes out of the double team ended up in a turnover. I think most of his turnovers came on that delayed double team when he had already put the ball on the floor. Is there a way to track how he turned the ball over when he was double teamed (bad pass, stripped, traveling, etc.)?

Great stuff once again, Ben. I know you can provide the goods during the long off days in between games. Thanks!

I think the Bobcats have a good matchup on Orlando. It reminds of the Orlando-Cleveland series in that when you’re looking at numbers and advanced stats, you’re gonna come up with a prediction of one side in 5, and if you’re more acute with Xs and Os basketball and matchups, the series should go 6, 7, either way.
I haven’t seen it this year, but I think coach Brown might utilize all of Diop, Mohammed, Ratliff, and Chandlers’ fouls and not worry about their play time. Giving up 1 per possession in certain stretches will beat the offensive efficiency of the Magic I think, and it could really frustrate Dwight. I know everyone is saying to single coverage Dwight so the shooters are guarded, but Charlotte has no good single defenders for Dwight so Brown has to double/delay double, or use fouls like free candy. If Brown is single covering Dwight and the Magic are not pounding the ball into him, shame on SVG and the perimeter playmakers.
A few other things I’d like to note:
SVG will start with Barnes on Wallace, but I think that he will need to change that onto Jackson later on, because Wallace is not offensive or playmaking like Jackson. This is alleviated because I suspect Pietrus will be guarding Jackson always, and if he’s doing well on both sides of the floor, he will have more playtime like he did in the playoffs last year.
I would like to start things off on a great footing with Rashard Lewis. I’d want to find him open looks, and do something that SVG hasn’t done too much of yet, utilize his post-ups and individual plays, he has a great turnaround jumper that he used to use a lot more last year, and he is underrated at attacking.
Raymond Felton has good numbers against Nelson, Im not necessarily too worried about it, I just want to make sure Nelson battles hard because the team defense will take care of many of Felton’s attacking possibilities because he is not a great shooter, and more importantly, that Nelson also kicks off his playoff performance great, because his rep is on the line, he already had a good showing in his last real playoffs, 2 yrs ago.
I don’t know what to expect of Thomas and Diaw, they’re versatile like Lewis, so we’ll see how Lewis and Ryan/Bass/Gortat cover them, but they shouldnt be able to score so much with Dwight/Gortat patrolling unless the Orlando PFs are ill-prepared on their main offensive moves or there is too much back door cutting/Off. rebounding being allowed to them, something that happens with the Orlando defense scheme (gotta have atleast one weakness with a top rated defensive efficiency).

I think Magic will win in 5, because even if Charlotte exploits this matchup as best as possible, this is not something new to how Orlando plays. They can play super slow, they’ve beaten Boston, LA with bad, ugly slow games and tons of fouls both ways, Charlotte would have to really draw fouls out of a more careful Dwight without an offensive big man who can let refs make up fouls, and the Cat’s perimeter players would have to really exploit the Magic perimeter players beyond comprehension, not likely with interchangeable lineups using Pietrus and Barnes and Dwight intelligently, while Carter, Nelson, and Lewis counter with even more returning offense and repeated PnR attacks. Superior talent, experience, offense… I’m more inclined to go Magic in 5 than how some are predicting with a 6, 7 game long series.

To this day, it still seems like Dwight struggles on the offensive side when an opposing frontcourt has several bigs that can just harrass him. If you have a bunch of 7 footers who can put bodies on him and have fouls to give you can frustrate him and take him out of sync. Detroit used to do it, and early in the season a lot Howard’s offensive struggles were a product of that.

Its a very similar move to what the Chicago Bulls did to Shaq in the 1996 Playoffs. They didnt have the talent but they had bodies and fouls to give. Michael Jordan mentioned that in his interview with NBA.com and I imagine Larry Brown will implement such a strategy.

The other thing they may do is push around Vince. If he’s vunerable and starts getting knocked down, he’ll be forced to take more jumpers and LB again is telling that Gerald Wallace and Stephen Jackson.

If those two struggle, no matter how deep they are, the whole Magic team is in a funk, regardless if they are hot.

We’ll need Barnes, Pietrus for backup toughness, Lewis and Nelson to be aggressive and backups like Gortart and Bass to supply the toughness and scoring in that case (I dont think Ryan Anderson’s pull up 3s are the answer).