The Magic's Keith Bogans soars to the basket  for 2 of his 6 points in Orlando's 95-70 win over New Jersey.
Photo by Ned Dishman, NBAE/Getty Images

In a hideous display of basketball, the Orlando Magic defeated the New Jersey Nets by a score of 95-70 to improve to 6-0 on the road and 8-2 overall. Here's the boxscore.

Tonight's game was much like Tuesday's contest against Seattle. It's not that we played well enough to win, but rather that the Nets played horridly enough to lose. They opened and closed the game on bad notes, managing just 10 points in the first quarter and 11 in the fourth. They shot under 30% from the field and under 70% at the foul line. All the Magic had to do was rebound and not turn the ball over, really.

The complexion of the game changed for good in the third quarter, when Sean Williams of the Nets missed a jam that would have cut our lead to 5. Jameer Nelson drilled a three-pointer on the other end to extend the lead to 8. After Richard Jefferson sank two free throws for the Nets, Rashard Lewis streaked down the court for another three, and the momentum shifted in our direction once more. We would not relinquish it.

Rashard Lewis (27 points) and Dwight Howard (21 points, 19 rebounds) played well for Orlando, but no one else distinguished himself. The Magic will need to play much sharper if they hope to beat the undefeated Celtics on Sunday.

Other notes:

• Dwight Howard became the youngest player to ever reach 3000 rebounds.
• Pat Garrity took Trevor Ariza's spot in the rotation and scored 4 points before leaving with an apparent ankle injury.
• Ariza scored on a breakaway dunk with 5 seconds to play, which New Jersey's Malik Allen took exception to. Allen took the inbounds pass, dribbled out the clock, then threw the ball in the direction of (not at) Ariza while shouting at him. Ariza responded by throwing the ball back in Allen's direction. The situation did not escalate further.
• Jason Kidd had a career-high 19 rebounds. He also had 11 points and 10 assists, giving him 89 career triple-doubles. Commentator Mark Jackson noted that the Nets would be much better off if they had a post player who could rebound and immediately outlet the ball to Kidd, rather than relying on Kidd to rebound and push the tempo all by himself. It's hard to disagree with him.
• James Augustine continues to make the most of his garbage-time minutes. In a shade under 3 minutes of time, Augustine hit a tough jumper from the right baseline and also recorded a steal and an assist.

	vs.
4-4		7-2
IZOD Center
7:30 PM
FSN
Probable starters:
Jason Kidd	PG	Jameer Nelson
Antoine Wright	SG	Keith Bogans
Richard Jefferson	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Bostjan Nachbar	PF	Rashard Lewis
Jason Collins	C	Dwight Howard

25 words or fewer: The Magic take a perfect 5-0 road record to New Jersey to face the slumping Nets, losers of three straight games.

Know your enemy: The Nets are a completely average team. They're 4-4 overall, with a 3-3 home record and a 1-1 road record.

Useless information: The Nets' Vince Carter, fresh off a four-year, $60 million extension, is injured.

Bullet points:

• Dwight Howard, at least by this measure, is the best center in the NBA. Jason Collins is known for his defense (not for his offense - just one made field goal all year!), but he'll have his hands full while guarding Howard tonight.
• Our very own Rashard Quovon Lewis played solidly against the Nets last season, with averages of 23.5 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists in two games. More importantly, he shot the ball well: 50% overall and 54% on threes. Let's see if he can score 30 tonight; he hasn't done that yet all season.
• Beloved former Magic player Darrell Armstrong is Jason Kidd's backup. We miss you, Flash.
  • UPDATE: Flash is nursing a thigh injury, so the Nets have signed Eddie Gill from the NBA's D-League to replace him on the active roster.
• Speaking of Kidd, he's liable to put up a triple-double on us. He presents problems for every team, but especially us because we don't have anyone who can guard him. Jameer and Carlos are too small, and Keyon Dooling doesn't seem to have the same quickness that made him so effective last season. But, as we learned on Wednesday night, opposing players can drop triple-doubles on their home floor against us and still lose.
• You may not believe this, but Richard Jefferson is 5th in the league in scoring with a 26.1 points per game average. If he gets his offense going early, I'll expect to see Trevor Ariza come off the bench to guard him.
• Brian Hill is a Nets assistant coach.
• I'll be officially worried if Hedo Turkoglu has another bad game tonight. He has not played well lately and the last thing we need is for Turk to be in one of his shooting slumps.
• UPDATE #2: Al Iannazzone reports that Bostjan Nachbar, not Nenad Krstic, will start at power forward tonight for New Jersey. Nets coach Lawrence Frank made the switch for two reasons: Nachbar, a natural small forward, matches up well with Rashard Lewis; and Krstic has struggled this season.