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Heat-Magic: 56k | 300k |
"We needed this game going into the All-Star break," Wade said. "We lost five close games and we really needed this game to get on a roll."
Rafer Alston scored 23 points, Lamar Odom added 18 and Brian Grant 16 and 12 rebounds for Miami, which has won two straight from its intrastate rivals.
Tracy McGrady scored 24 points for Orlando, which dropped its seventh straight game and fifth consecutive at home. Juwan Howard added 22 points.
"This season is pretty much downhill for us," McGrady said. "There's no way, we're out of the playoff run, so we have to play for other things."
The Magic's skid is the longest current streak in the NBA. They had a franchise-record 19-game slide earlier in the season.
Team executive Pat Williams announced the top 10 players in Magic history during a halftime telecast, with current All-Star guard McGrady topping the list. The event was supposed to be a festive event for the franchise, but the Heat were the ones that had a good time.
"We just decided to come out aggressive," Wade said. "We knew this was a team that could really score. We wanted to come out and get on them, because we know they can score points real fast."
Miami cruised to a 60-35 lead with 3:11 remaining in the second quarter. Orlando gradually chipped away and pulled within 103-96 with 2:01 to go. But Alston's 3-pointer a minute later pushed the cushion back to 106-96.
Heat forward Caron Butler suffered a back injury in Tuesday's game and did not play. Alston started in his absence and did not disappoint. He connected with Wade early and often, setting up the high-flying rookie for uncontested dunks and layups on most of his five assists.
"Absolutely, guys are ready to go on vacation," McGrady said. "We showed that in the first half. In the second half, we came out with a lot of energy. But we dug ourselves too big a hole to try and even win the game."
"We were moving the ball and getting good shots," Wade said. "That was the key, to move the ball and make them play defense for at least 18, 19 seconds of the shot clock."
When Wade wasn't being set up by Alston, the former Marquette star still made an easy path to the basket on his own.
As has been the case all season, Orlando struggled with its interior defense and was dominated on the backboards. Miami outrebounded Orlando 46-24, collecting 15 offensive boards to Orlando's 16 defensive boards.
