National Basketball Association

Howard-Shaq matchup falls flat in Cavs' win

Published Nov. 12, 2009 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

Game Time: Cavs 102, Magic 93

Forget everything that's been said to the contrary: After Dwight Howard manhandled both Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao in last season's Eastern Conference finals, Superman I was signed by Cleveland for one specific purpose — to control Superman II.

Here's how their initial super-duper confrontation on Wednesday night turned out.

Since the season began, Howard's play has lacked the high intensity that he demonstrated all of last year. In the game at hand, he became even more passive after picking up two early fouls while trying to defend Shaquille O'Neal in the low post.

The first foul was marginal, a quick, jabbing two-handed push as Shaq drove. But the second foul — at 9:42 — was simply a horrible call. As Shaq executed a power-spin to the baseline, his feet got tangled and he stumbled while putting up an awkward shot that clanged off the backboard. Yet even though Howard was essentially an innocent bystander, he was tagged with the foul and forced to the bench.

Late in the third quarter, though, after letting LeBron James get away with an obvious charge, the refs overlooked Howard's blatantly shoving Ilgauskas out of bounds and instead, called a phantom foul on Big Z. The righteous decision would have been to pin a fourth foul on Howard, but the refs chose to make a belated make-up call.

Despite finally getting a break from the three blind mice and except for setting several outstanding screens and making a pair of exquisite defensive plays — sealing the baseline against a driving J.J. Hickson and blocking a layup attempt by LeBron — Howard was mostly lethargic during his 32 minutes of daylight.

The reigning Defensive Player of the Year was also late on several defensive rotations, bit on a crude head-fake by Varejao 18 feet from the hoop and repeatedly had difficulty boxing Ilgauskas off the defensive glass.