Dwight Howard
Dwight Howard
Dwight David Howard is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association. Howard, who plays center, had an outstanding high school career at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. He chose to forgo college and entered the 2004 NBA draft, and was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic. An eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA team selection, five-time All-Defensive member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year, Howard has been ranked consistently as one of the best...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth8 December 1985
CityAtlanta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
We had a lot of careless mistakes but I think that our defensive pressure was not there the whole game. We gave them easy baskets on our turnovers and that's one thing our coaches have been impressing on us all year.
This win was real big. Coach ( Brian Hill ) said that we have three teams coming up with Miami (April 9), Dallas and San Antonio (April 13) and we wanted to get all three teams.
I want to be held accountable. I want my teammates and my coaches to push me to be the best that I can be.
Coach is going to have our backs, good or bad, and I think guys appreciate that. It feels good that your coach is sticking up for you, letting them know how you feel. But at the same time, we need to just play the game instead of complaining and whining about the calls.
I was just trying to make a play for my team. The last thing Randy (Magic assistant coach Randy Ayers) told me was to make a play. I just wanted to get down and play good defense.
Our coach said before the game, we got three good teams coming up in Miami, Dallas and San Antonio. We want to go out and try to beat all three teams. We started off tonight with a good win.
That sent us off on a good note. Even the coaches are smiling lately. It's good to see old, grumpy men smiling.
I don't need to be like, 'Hey, throw me the ball.' But I guess I do need to put some bass in my voice. One of the things that coach Hill says is that he needs me to be more aggressive to get the ball.
We felt we really beat them down tonight.
The season isn't over. Maybe a trade, maybe the All-Star break, something will jump-start us. Hopefully, the switch will come on.
We really needed a win tonight, especially on the road. My mind-set tonight was to really focus in on bearing down and getting a win. I wanted to do everything in my will to get that win tonight.
We can win games at home. But we seem to lose focus on the road.
That's the secret to success -- not worrying only about what's going to happen in the future, trying to work only on the stuff you can work on in the present.
It feels good. From the get-go, we knew we could beat these guys. The story all year has been us not playing up to our potential, not playing as well as we can. When we do that, we lose, and that happened a lot earlier in the season. We've learned that we have to come out with the kind of intensity we had tonight every night.