You Really Can't Go Home Again

Last night ,Los Angelas Lakers Center Dwight Howard got a little taste of what it must have been like to be Lebron James a few years ago...He and his new team, The Los Angelas Lakers played the Orlando Magic...His old team last night in Orlando....and well....If you closed your eyes and listened to the hue and cry...You would have thought you were in Cleveland and the Miami Heat were in town!A few years back...

I wonder if they still boo when Lebron comes back there to play?  Surely they must have gotten over that by now...I don't know....With some fans, when a player leaves...it runs deep...Others not so deep... I don't think we boo Kobe Bryant here in his native Philadelphia anymore...

Last night in his return to Orlando, Dwight Howard scored a season-high 39 points, with 25 of them coming as he tied his own NBA record with 39 free-throw attempts. He also pulled down 16 rebounds, blocked three shots and looked as fluid on defense as he has all year, limiting budding Magic big man Nikola Vucevic(who incidentally used to be a Sixer and will probably not get booed upon his return here....Nobody cares !) to just six points after conceding 17 and 12 rebounds in Orlando's December upset of the Lakers in Los Angeles.

In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch at all to say that Tuesday's game was Howard's best all-around performance during his brief tenure with the Lakers -- a promising sign of things to come for a Los Angeles team that has won 17 of its last 23 games as it makes a long-awaited playoff push. However, it was also an equally somber reminder for Magic fans of how good they used to have it as Orlando dropped to 18-47 on the season.

"This is fun," Howard said after the game with his trademark kilowat smile, addressing a packed visitors locker room that most certainly did not feel like home. "I was looking forward to being back here, but thank God it's over with."

The game started as typically as you might expect in a situation like Dwight Howard's, with fans eager to remind him just how much he is despised in a place where he was once beloved and untouchable. Somewhere Lebron James is saying..."Yeah man, I know how you feel."

A few particularly frustrated Magic fans launched their attack on Orlando's former No. 1 draft pick before lineups were even announced, shouting out insults during the national anthem. Then the rest of the crowd joined in and booed Howard relentlessly when PA announcer Paul Porter nonchalantly called his name, tossing it aside like that of an absolute stranger during pregame introductions.

Once the game tipped off, fans gave Dwight Howard the LeBron James treatment, inexorably booing him every time he touched the ball. But Superman seemed unaffected, and as he settled into his groove, making three of his first four shots, he started giving it right back to his former supporters.

He gloated after a soaring dunk early in the first quarter, and after a monstrous block of a Tobias Harris shot that was reminiscent of his gravy days in Orlando,Dwight  Howard playfully ribbed some fans sitting courtside near the Magic bench. Then as he headed to the LA bench following the game's first timeout, Howard stopped to jaw with injured Magic forward Glen Davis.

I have no ill will toward anybody on that team," Howard clarified later. "I was just having fun and getting myself going."

His self-motivation strategy worked to perfection, and once it became clear late in the second quarter that Howard was going to have no trouble outclassing his former team -- a group that, on Tuesday, featured just one player who played with Howard in Orlando -- Magic coach Jacque Vaughn changed his approach and employed the hack-a-Howard strategy, intentionally sending Howard to the line after a 2-of-9 start from the stripe.

But like most of Orlando's attempts to stop Superman, the fouls backfired, as Dwight made 23 of his final 30 attempts, including 16 of 20 on intentional fouls away from the ball. And, if anything, the time spent at the line seemed to calm the sub-50-percent shooter Howard has been on a night when he could have had every reason to be flustered and frustrated.

He said this after the game- ""I didn't have to be aggressive," Howard said of his offensive showing. "All I had to do was run up the court.... I needed that to learn how to block a lot of things out while I was at the line, and I was able to do that. Despite the boos and all that stuff, I found a rhythm and found a way to block all that negativity out."

He like Lebron has been very good at doing that, especially since the Lakers haven't exactly had one of their better seasons this year.

With 7:15 left in the third quarter, Orlando, which trailed by four at the half, actually took a brief lead at 57-56, but from that point on, Howard hit 16 of 20 free throws as the lead ballooned to as many as 16 points down the stretch. Fans began trickling out of the arena early in the fourth quarter as LA began to grow its lead, but an official timeout with 2:25 left to play saw a mass exodus, and when Howard walked off the court he did so to cheers -- a surreal scene on a surreal night for the league's best center.

"I think psychologically it was big for him to come into this environment and play as well as he did," said Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who had 11 points, seven rebounds and eight assists as he took a backseat to Howard for the night. "I think it is a big boost for his confidence.... He played with a lot of energy and the right amount of energy. He wasn't distracted or down about coming back, and his energy propelled us."

Unfortunately for Magic fans, Dwight Howard's breakthrough happened at their expense on a night they had hoped would be celebratory -- or at the very least soothing -- another reminder of how good they once had it when Howard was wearing blue and white and how bleak the future without their one-time star has the potential to be.

Like I said...Somewhere Lebron James is nodding his head and saying..."Yeah man, I know how you feel."