Magic's Howard is top defensive player again

ORLANDO, Fla. —  For the third straight season — and to the surprise of no one — Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard on Monday was chosen the NBA's top defender.

The Magic announced Howard had been named the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year during a news conference at the Amway Center.

With the recognition, Howard became the first player in NBA history to win the award in three straight seasons. Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace won the award four times but not in consecutive seasons. Wallace's four awards came in a five-year span, Mutombo's in a seven-year span.

Howard won this year's award in a landslide, taking 114 of the 120 first place votes.

Howard received five second-place votes, but, curiously, one voter left Howard entirely off the ballot — to which Howard chided, "I'll do better next year, so you can vote for me."

The six other first-place votes went to Chuck Hayes (two of them), Kevin Garnett, Grant Hill, Joakim Noah and Keith Bogans. Based on the award's scoring system, Howard finished with 585 points, well ahead of Garnett's 77.

This season, Howard finished second in the NBA in rebounding with an average of 14.1 per game and was third in the league with 4.0 offensive rebounds. Howard grabbed more defensive rebounds (10.1) than anyone else in the league and finished third in the league with 186 blocked shots (2.4 a game).

According to 82games.com, 96 of Howard's blocks came on jump shots, 88 came on "close" shots near the rim and two came on dunks.

Howard, who showed marked improvement in hand speed this season, had 107 steals during the 2010-11 season and was 19th in the NBA with 1.4 steals per game. Among centers, Howard, whose previous high for steals was 77, was tops in the league in steals per game.

Howard thanked everyone from general manager Otis Smith to the fans, but he singled out a few other centers for turning him into the defensive presence he is today — including one whose record he's still chasing.

"Dikembe, a couple years ago — before I won the first award — me, him and Tony Battie had a great talk one night and that's what kind of started a fire for me on the defensive end," Howard said. "Then talking to Patrick Ewing every day about being a better defensive player."

Howard was effusive in his praise of Ewing, a Magic assistant coach and NBA legend who has grown close with Howard and helped him fine-tune his skills on both ends of the floor.

"Patrick was the one who made me mad, made me want to be better on the defensive end, because he'd tell me, 'There's no way you shouldn't be leading the league in blocks and rebounds' and stuff like that," Howard said. "He just stayed on me, and that just pushed me to become better."

Of course, sometimes being a better defender means winding up on the embarrassing end of a few highlight reels.

"I used to hate getting dunked on, so I never tried to contest shots or challenge shots," Howard said. "But you can't worry about getting dunked on or being on 'SportsCenter' and all that stuff. You've got to do what you've got to do to protect our team and for us to win games."

One place Howard is critical to his team's success is on the glass, where he helped the Magic finish second in the league in rebounding differential and first in total defensive rebounds with 2,679. Howard grabbed 29.5 percent (789) of Orlando's defensive rebounds and 31 percent (1,098) of their overall boards.

Howard has secured at least 1,000 rebounds in every NBA season except for his rookie campaign in 2004, and has led the league in total defensive rebounds in each of the past four seasons.

Despite the impressive numbers, Howard's most valuable defensive attribute can't truly be measured through per-game statistics.

If the NBA could keep statistics on "minds changed" or "last minute, airborne, kick-out passes caused," Howard would dominate. His presence in the middle strikes fear in to the hearts of opponents and forces teams to formulate their entire offensive game plan with Howard's defense in mind.

And, more often than not, that means staying away from Howard's domain in the paint.

According to Hoopdata.com, Orlando leads the NBA in fewest opponent field-goal attempts at the rim with just 19.9 per game. Of those 20 shots a night, teams make an average of just 12.5. The NBA averages are 15.4 makes on 24.1 attempts at the rim per game.

Synergy Sports Technology estimates Howard has defended 531 possessions this season, with opponents making just 39.4 percent of the resulting 444 shots.

On post-ups, Howard allowed just 38.8 percent shooting on 134 attempts, and on spot-up shots, opponents made just 57 of 145 attempts. Given that most of these shots come at or around the rim, the numbers are quite impressive.

Players make it a point to stay away from Howard, and the Orlando defense is better as a whole for it.

The Magic limited opponents to just 93.7 points per game during the regular season, good for third in the league. Orlando also finished fourth in the league in opponents' field-goal percentage at 43.6 and third in the league in overall defensive efficiency, allowing 98.9 points per 100 possessions.

Those numbers speak volumes considering Howard is Orlando's only regular rotation player who is an above-average individual defender.

According to 82games.com's numbers, the Magic are minus-49 in point differential this season with Howard on the bench, and Orlando's opponents average three more points per 48 minutes (95.3) when Howard is out of the game.

Monday's defensive honor might not even be Howard's last major award this season.

There's still a chance he could join Michael Jordan (1988) and Hakeem Olajuwon (1994) as the only players in NBA history to win both the Defensive Player of the Year and MVP awards in the same season.

The MVP will be announced later this month, and a number of fans, players and media believe Howard, who also averaged 22.9 points per game, deserves to take home that honor, as well. However, that award is expected to go to Chicago point guard Derrick Rose, with Howard likely finishing second.

"If I do win the MVP it would be a great honor," Howard said. "It's something I've been working toward; it's been one of my individual goals that I put up above my bed every year, is to become one of the best players in the game, and to win the MVP award."

Should Howard win, he would be the first MVP in Magic franchise history. But he made it clear Monday that's not his ultimate goal.

"I want a Finals MVP championship," Howard said. "That's better than the regular award."

Howard and the Magic are back in action Tuesday, when they try to even their first-round series with the Atlanta Hawks at 1-1. In Game 1, Howard scored a career-high 46 points to go with 19 rebounds in a 103-93 loss.

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