How Dwight Howard grew a little and saved the Magic's season

BOSTON -- The Orlando Magic didn't win their second-round series with the Boston Celtics on the pseudo-parquet of TD Banknorth Garden in Game 7 Sunday. The Magic won the series late last Tuesday night, into Wednesday morning, which bled into Thursday morning and afternoon. Forty-eight hours that saved the season. For it was during that period -- from the moment Dwight Howard verbally unloaded on his coach, Stan Van Gundy, to the end of Game 6, when Howard backed up his words with 23 points and 22 rebounds to help tie the series -- that Orlando healed as a team.

And it was during those 48 hours that Howard took a big step forward in his maturation as a leader. At that podium, he wasn't Superman, he wasn't Twittering, he wasn't playing it for laughs. He got serious. And he took his team with him as he threw his coach under the bus.

"After Game 5, I was very upset, frustrated that we lost," Howard said. "And I didn't want to go home. Vacation can come later on this summer. My plan is to play through June."

The truly great players, understand, were horrible teammates. Horrible in the sense that you didn't want to fail them, and you didn't want to be around them when you did fail them. Oh, the stories you hear about Oscar Robertson when you dropped one of his passes. You think Larry Bird was fun to be around after a loss? You think Magic Johnson took it easy in practice after the Lakers got smoked? I can tell you that you stayed away from Isiah Thomas's locker when the Pistons were struggling. And let's not even bring up Jordan.

Howard learned a lot from his Olympic Team experience last summer. But still just 23, Howard hadn't yet had to do those things, to challenge older teammates, not to mention his coach. Howard is so talented that he can show up five minutes before a lot of regular season games against inferior opponents and still get his double-double.

But Van Gundy has been after him for two years to become more focused, more consistent in his preparation. He famously benched Howard during the fourth quarter of a game last season and criticized Howard's inconsistency with rebounding and defense.

"I think when Coach called out Dwight, the very next game, he had like, 25. 26 rebounds," Magic forward Rashard Lewis said. "He's good at responding to adversity."

But this was the big stage, playing against the defending world champions, in a series that, frankly, Orlando had dominated. But after blowing a 14-point fourth quarter lead in Game 5 and falling down 3-2, the Magic were on the verge of elimination.

And Howard was angry. Angry about a lot of things. But the only person he mentioned by name was Van Gundy.

Yet it took many in the organization to get Howard ready, in mind and spirit, for Game 6. And the Magic won 6 and 7, a breakthrough that will likely pay dividends for years to come.

"It really wasn't anything big in our organization at all," general manager Otis Smith said Monday. "More was made out of it than it really was."

Maybe it's a stretch to say those 48 hours saved the franchise, for Howard is Orlando's signature player, who will be around as long as he wants. And Van Gundy, no matter the hysterical media reaction after Orlando's Game 5 meltdown ("Orlando Magic Head coach Stan Van Gundy's job is officially in jeopardy" screamed a blog headline in the Orlando Sentinel Thursday, leading to a post whose speculation was anything but official), was never in any danger of losing his job.

Shaq has had his fun taking shots at Van Gundy, who has the good sense not to try and fire back. Even backup center Marcin Gortat seconded Diesel's "he panics" accusations about Van Gundy during the Magic's first-round series with Philadelphia. But Van Gundy's grating, demanding style has gotten Orlando to the east finals. In temperament, he is the fire to Smith's ice, and it's a combination that Orlando's decision makers like.

The Magic's yin and yang went to work on The Howard Situation before the team's bus had gotten to its charter flight back to Orlando Tuesday night. Van Gundy knew what Howard had said and had a brief conversation with Smith -- no whining or complaining, just stating that the coach and the player needed to speak before practice on Wednesday.

Smith believed Howard's complaint wasn't about Van Gundy, but about how Boston's Kendrick Perkins was muscling him away from his favorite spots on the court when he posted up.

"Internally, we started handling it before we left Boston," Smith said. "Stan and I talked about it later on that night, but it wasn't anything where we had this urgent thing we had to do. It wasn't a major issue. I didn't see it as a major, major issue. And I think he took all of the pressure off of everybody else and put it on his shoulders."

The charter landed back in Orlando after 2 a.m. Wednesday. By 3, Howard was back in his house, unable to sleep.

His Blackberry chirped. It was a text from Jameer Nelson, his injured teammate. He hasn't played since February, after suffering a torn labrum in his shoulder, but this was one of Nelson's biggest assists of the year.

"After a loss, me and Jameer are usually up," Howard said. "We're usually up about the same time, about three in the morning. He just sent me a text, asking me if I was okay. And, you know, I wasn't. So that's how it started. We talked, talked for a while."

It was Nelson's absence on the court that at least one member of the Orlando braintrust thinks led, if inadvertently, to Howard's outburst.

"It wouldn't have happened if Jameer had been on the floor," the Magician said Sunday. "Jameer sometimes does Stan's thinking out there, and he would have said, 'hey, the big fella needs some touches.'"

Later Wednesday morning, Howard arrived at the team's RDV SportsPlex practice facility. Van Gundy was waiting.

"I felt much better after he and I talked," Howard said. "He wanted to talk. He just wanted to ask me where I was coming from. He understood that me doing anything, you know, like that would be out of frustration. It wasn't like he was mad or upset or had any problem with it."

Howard apologized for his outburst, but more communication was necessary.

Smith pulled Howard's coat next.

"I put a greater responsibility on raising men than winning championships," Smith said. "That was the premise of the conversation he and I had. It wasn't anything more than that.... I don't put any more onus on winning than helping men become men. They come to us pretty young...our responsibility to them as men is to help them continue growing as men. It's not just getting them more widgets...I hold them to a higher standard. It's not just winning."

Next was Lewis. Lewis isn't a big talker, never has been in 10 years in the NBA. But he thought Howard needed to know that if he wasn't getting enough touches to suit his liking, it wasn't because his teammates weren't trying to get him the ball.

"We did talk a little bit," Lewis said late Sunday. "It was just more about, we're telling him that he's always getting double teamed, or when we're getting ready to pass him the ball, there's a guy behind you. (Howard) doesn't see it, that there's another guy next to you that's waiting to steal the ball. But you can't let that frustrate you and get offensive fouls. Because we need you on the other end. We need you to rebound, we need you to block shots. If we can't get you the ball down low, be dominant on the glass, get offensive rebounds and put it back."

Finally, later Wednesday, Howard heard from backup guard Anthony Johnson. Howard likes to joke about the 34-year-old Johnson's age ("he played with Wilt," Howard says), but he respects Johnson greatly.

Johnson's message wasn't about Xs and Os. He told Howard that if he wanted to be the man Thursday night, he had to be the man Thursday morning. He had to dominant the morning shootaround, set the tone for the team then, not when he arrived at Amway Arena for the game.

"I came in with that mentality the next day," Howard said.

Lewis noticed.

"He most definitely" dominated the morning practice, Lewis said. "If he comes to shootaround playing around, joking or not paying attention or focusing in, everybody else is going to follow his lead. We're going to do the same thing. He didn't do that the shootaround when we came back...he was focused in. He was making sure everybody else was focused. He was on top of guys, talking to us in the locker room. And when Dwight says something, we've got to be all ears. We've got to listen."

In Game 6, Orlando didn't change its game plan and start forcing the ball inside. Howard had 10 post touches in Game 5; he had 13 in Game 6. But he was different. He was moving on pick and roll plays, pounding the glass, being active at the offensive end. He dominated an otherwise ugly performance by his teammates, and got them back to Boston.

He was the same at the Game 7 shootaround as he was before Game 6.

"I thought he was very focused (Sunday) morning," Van Gundy said.

Howard didn't put up monster offensive numbers (12 points), but he set the tone with three first-quarter dunks created by his teammates' dribble penetration. He sent five Celtics' shots back into the night, and altered three or four more. The paint was his. And he inhaled 16 rebounds in Orlando's 101-82 victory.

The last two games had his stamp all over them.

"He learned from that," said Hedo Turkoglu, who had 25 points and 12 assists Sunday. "He shouldn't say that. But sometimes you can't control the stuff that's silly that comes out of your mouth ... he didn't want to let that stuff spread or get even worse. He stopped it there."

It made Smith smile.

Smith didn't draft Howard; that was already done when he became the Magic's GM in 2006. And he didn't sign Turkoglu. But, like San Antonio's Gregg Popovich and Cleveland's Danny Ferry, Smith has done an outstanding job building a team good enough to support his superstar.

That was Lewis, in whom Smith invested $119 million as a free agent in 2007, wearing out the Celtics' Garnett-less power forwards. That was J.J. Redick, whom Smith stubbornly refused to trade even when Redick asked to be dealt, staying out on the court because of his defense against Ray Allen.

That was rookie guard Courtney Lee, whom Smith found with the 22nd pick in the draft, making sure there was no repeat of Eddie House's 31-point explosion in Game 2. And that was Skip Alston, whom Smith got from Houston at the trade deadline after Nelson went down, beating the faster Rajon Rondo down the floor time and again in the first half. And that was Mickael Pietrus, Smith's free agent pickup last summer, draining six of seven shots, including three three-pointers, to seal the game in the fourth quarter.

But they are all satellites in Howard's orbit. It doesn't work without him. And in this, his sternest test to date, he passed. With the help of the Orlando Village.

"Dwight is a young guy who wants it all and he wants it now," Smith said. "But he's only 23. And that's why I keep telling everybody, when he turns 25, 26, he's going to be a beast. Because he'll get it by then."

Send your salutations, constructive criticism and snark to daldridgetnt@gmail.com . If your e-mail is chosen, you will qualify for a $1.7 billion federal bailout. Well, actually, you won't. But we'll print your e-mail.