Dwight Howard's quickly assembled team fell to Nigeria 75-70 Wednesday night.

Dwight Howard seems like he’s really on a mission to do it all.

On Wednesday night, at an old youth gym in Eatonville with five rows of bleachers and a stage three feet beyond the far baseline, Howard coached a competitive basketball game for the first time in his life.

He led a group of female ex-college basketball players, most of whom were from Orange and Seminole Counties, in an exhibition against the Nigerian national team, which was looking for some quality competition while training for the Olympics here in Central Florida.

These local girls lost by 26 points the last time Nigeria played a team from Orlando. Howard, with his swiftly assembled squad called “Team Dwight Howard,” wanted to do better than that.

This wasn’t a mail-it-in, smile-for-the-fans type of appearance for Howard. He was seriously getting his Stan Van Gundy on, from calling out plays to subbing players in and out. He didn’t spend much time texting on his iPhone or cutting it up with fans — Howard was committed to coaching the girls while the clock was running.

He even turned down a media interview before the game and during halftime, saying he was “in coach mode.”

The day before the game, Howard held a practice with the girls where he learned everyone’s names and went over the plays.

“I got with them yesterday and we ran some plays for two hours, and we came today and we played,” Howard said. “I only got them for one day.”

It wasn’t a terrible showing for being together such a short amount of time. Nigeria won 75-70, holding off a late rally from Team Howard. In the final minutes, Team Howard implemented the full-court press and forced several turnovers, cutting a double-digit deficit down to three points with 12 seconds to go.

Nigeria, a far more polished team, sank their free-throws late to thwart the comeback.

During crunch time, Howard even called some offense-defense substitutions, opting to play his shooting specialists while on offense and his more athletic players on defense. He was serious about winning.

The event was run by L.A.B. Sports, a youth sports training company based in Winter Springs. No one paid Howard to be there — it was a pro bono endeavor, like many of his other philanthropic appearances throughout the summer.

NBA referees flagged Howard for 18 technical fouls last season, costing Howard two separate one-game suspensions and criticism for being too hot-headed with the officials. Yet in this game, Howard was quite cordial to the refs. The stakes weren’t as high, obviously, and the referees were volunteers from the community — but even so, Howard wanted to show that as a coach, he’s the calmest one in the gym.

“The one thing I wanted to show the team that know matter what happens, I’m not going to lose my cool,” he said. “I just let them play and they had total confidence in me.”

A big reason Howard jumped at this event was because he wanted to show his support for the ladies.

“I support women’s basketball and I just want more people to really give women an opportunity,” Howard said. “In basketball, women are forgotten about. And I’m trying to help the women as much as possible.”

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