Dwight Howard says he played through a torn MCL and meniscus in the playoffs
He’ll take in the usual flak, but Dwight Howard should be applauded for being honest. He worked through the last four games of the 2015 Western Conference finals with a pair of injuries that he should have sat with, staying competitive even as his upstart Houston Rockets fell in five games to the eventual champion Golden State Warriors.
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Via Garrett Heinrich at CBS Houston, Howard told SportsRadio 610 that a pair of knee injuries limited his effectiveness in the Conference finals:
“I basically was playing with a torn MCL and meniscus,” Howard said. “I never said anything about it, I tried to cover it up saying it was a sore knee, but I was in pain the rest of the series.”
Howard said it was about giving it his all for his teammates as to why he played through the injuries.
“You never know if you will ever make it back to this moment,” Howard told Meltser and Payne. “Sacrifice your body, your mind, your spirit for your teammates and for the city and hope for the best. And when we lost, it was like, I gave everything I had. And it hurt, but we can make up for it this season.”
You’ll recall that Howard left Game 1 after then-teammate Josh Smith fell into his left knee. He was officially listed as “questionable” for Game 2 prior to returning to returning to contribute 19 points and 17 rebounds to Houston’s Game 2 loss. If you take out the truncated Game 1 turn, Howard averaged 16.2 points, 14.7 rebounds and two blocks a contest all while working on a bum knee against one of the league’s best defenses, and one of the league’s best defensive centers in Andrew Bogut.
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Of course, because Howard is very tall and very annoying, the doubters will come out in droves. Especially after reading this, from ESPN’s Calvin Watkins:
According to a source, team doctors said he did not need offseason surgery because the tears weren’t that severe.
A tear is still a tear, though, and a partially-torn MCL and meniscus, while still not requiring surgery, can still down a player for a few weeks at a time. Were it the regular season, Howard would have either had quick corrective surgery, or he’d sit until the tears had healed. Either way, he’d be on the pine for a few weeks, perhaps a month.
Instead, he played through the pain, working against the champs to-be on one leg.
Howard missed 41 games in 2014-15 due to a variety of ailments. Prior to that campaign he’d missed 35 career games in total, spread out over ten seasons of constant banging. It’s fair to assume, as he turns 30 in December and as he comes off the worst statistical season since his teenaged rookie year, that his most dominant days are behind him.
That doesn’t mean he can’t act as a tipping point on a championship team, playing at an All-Star level. Just because Howard doesn’t demand the offensive attention he once did, wrestling for MVP votes along the way, it doesn’t mean he can’t be the big man that puts the Rockets over the top.
Still, even after four months’ rest, it is imperative that the Rockets go slow with their center, as they prepare to attempt to play into June for the first time in what would be 21 years.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
