This attitude is what the Magic need more of. From Dwight's comments after the Magic beat the Wizards on Wednesday:

"Everybody knows what LeBron did, everybody remembers," Magic center Dwight Howard said. "I want to be remembered."

[....]

"We want Toronto to feel like they're in hell."

I want Dwight to be remembered, too, and not just for the Superman dunk. He can ascend from Superstardom to, uh, Superduperstardom (?) if he can dominate in the playoffs. As much as we worry about not having anyone who can guard Chris Bosh, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that somebody on the Raptors has to guard Howard. On whom will the Raptors call? How has Dwight done against that person historically?

Enter Rasho Nesterovic, the veteran center who's having a career renaissance in April, averaging 16 points, 6 rebounds, and 60% shooting from the field. But the focus of this piece is defense, so let's get to it. 82games shows us that he held opposing centers to a PER of 13.8 this season. That's all well and good, but how did he and Dwight do against one another in the regular season? Let's take a look:

These resources can't tell us who guarded whom in these stretches, so take the results with a grain of salt. However, it's reasonable to assume that Dwight and Rasho were indeed matched-up with one another. That was most evident in the third game, when the Raptors were without Bosh. Dwight scored 19 points in 29 minutes, but the play-by-play shows he did most of that damage when Rasho was off the floor. Overall, Dwight's total of 12 points in 26:36 against Nesterovic puts him on pace for 16.2 points per 36 minutes, well below his season average of 19.8 points per 36, which suggests that the Raptors can indeed rely on Nesterovic to contain Howard.

But can they afford to play him heavy minutes? Does he negatively impact the offense? While the Raptors are nearly 6 points worse per 100 possessions when Nesterovic is on the court, they shouldn't fret; when on the floor with the Raptors' other starters (T.J. Ford, Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, and Bosh), Toronto outscores its opponent 82% of the time.

But...

When Dwight's motivated, he's awesome. After Stan Van Gundy famously called him out for his lack of effort, Dwight responded with a 23-point, 24-rebound effort against the Denver Nuggets, who employ Marcus Camby, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, at center.

So, one table and several paragraphs later, we're no closer to figuring out how Dwight will do against Rasho. Considering that Chris Bosh will get his points (probably 35 a game), and that Jamario Moon's athleticism poses problems for Hedo Turkoglu, it's important that Dwight at least scores at his usual rate. He's had trouble with Nesterovic in the past, but the playoffs are a different animal.

And so is Dwight.

Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors makes an uncontested slam-dunk after blowing by the defense of Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic. The Raptors won, 127-110.
Photo by Ron Turenne/NBAE via Getty Images

In a horrid display of defensive ineptitude, the Orlando Magic let the Toronto Raptors score 127 points and get virtually any shot they wanted. The game featured 89 possessions, meaning the Raptors blistered the Magic for an offensive rating of 142.7. Chris Bosh abused Dwight Howard for 40 points -- two shy of his career-high -- on 14-of-16 shooting; Howard returned the favor, with 37 points -- two shy of his career-high -- on 13-of-16 shooting. With the teams' respective superstars putting on offensive clinics against one another, two factors swayed the game in Toronto's favor:

1. Hot three-point shooting;
2. Help from teammates

The first factor is no surprise. The Raptors lead the NBA in three-point percentage and feature Jason Kapono, the two-time defending three-point shootout champion. They shot 11-of-20 from downtown on the night. Granted, some of those were lucky makes. Bosh and rookie Jamario Moon, both sub-.300 three-point shooters for their careers, nailed back-to-back treys in the third quarter. But for the most part, the Raptors got the looks they wanted, and that's the Magic's fault; that's not lucky shots by usually poor shooters.

The second factor is pretty eye-popping. Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis, the Magic's two other major offensive threats, combined for 32 points on 10-of-30 shooting. They looked tired on the second night of a back-to-back, and Turkoglu was more content to defer to his teammates and finished with a team-best 9 assists. Meanwhile, Bosh's supporting cast was much more effective. Every Raptor who played more than 20 minutes shot at least 50% from the floor. Carlos Delfino and Jose Calderon combined for 7 three-pointers. Taking away the horrid play of Andrea Bargnani, the 7'0" center whom the Raptors drafted with the first overall selection in the 2006 NBA draft, the Raptors shot 46-of-72. Unreal.

As horridly as we played tonight, we shouldn't get too worried. We were on the second night of a back-to-back playing a contending team on the road. Additionally, we were coming off two great efforts against Denver and Detroit in which we held them to sub-100 offensive ratings. And with a somewhat favorable schedule to end the month, the Magic should still be in good shape headed into March and the big playoff push.

A final note on Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard: as Magic play-y-play man David Steele noted, Bosh and Howard have a good relationship, as Bosh was a freshman at Georgia Tech when Howard was a high-school senior at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy. Bosh has consistently outplayed Howard in head-to-head matchups, but most reasonable NBA fans would agree that Howard is the better player and has the best shot at being a championship big-man at some point in their career. In this respect, the Bosh/Howard relationship resembles that of Chris Paul and Deron Williams, the two point guards forever linked because of their draft class. Williams has beaten Paul in 7 of his Jazz's 8 head-to-head meetings with Paul's Hornets, and has consistently outplayed him in those meetings, yet Paul is a much better player and a bona-fide MVP candidate. It will be interesting to see how the Bosh/Howard relationship plays out as their careers progress. Although Detroit and Boston are clearly in a class by themselves in the Eastern Conference, they're also much older than Toronto and Orlando. Cleveland is another great team, but they don't have a young, dominant big-man. Thus, there's a great chance that Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard will do battle in several Eastern Conference Finals series in the years to come.

And I can't wait.

	vs.
28-23		34-21
Air Canada Centre
7:00 PM
Sun Sports
Probable starters:
Jose Calderon	PG	Jameer Nelson
Anthony Parker	SG	Maurice Evans
Jamario Moon	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Chris Bosh	PF	Rashard Lewis
Andrea Bargnani	C	Dwight Howard

Tonight's game marks the Raptors' first in exactly a week. The All-Star break was fairly kind to Toronto. Jason Kapono defended his Three-Point Shootout crown, and Chris Bosh started for the Eastern team for the second straight season.

Toronto is a team that concerns me because it matches up well against Orlando. Bosh is a big guy, but he doesn't exclusively play down low. Ditto for Andrea Bargnani. The point is there's no one for Dwight Howard to guard, because he's loathe to go out on the perimeter. He'll almost certainly check Bosh, but if he uses his quick first step well, he'll go directly to the basket with almost no resistance.

Speaking of Bosh: he's one of the funniest guys in the NBA. First, he imitated a used-car salesman to campaign for All-Star votes; more recently, he became Blane Harrington, an Oxford graduate, in this hilarious entry. It's appropriate that I mention Bosh's sense of humor because the Magic are a joke to him. He set a career-high of 41 points in a game against us last year, a number he has since bested in a game against the Suns.

Check out the Dinosty for a Raptors perspective.

Tipoff's at 7:00 on Sun Sports. Don't worry about missing the Suns/Lakers game, in which Shaquille O'Neal will make his Phoenix debut against his former pal, Kobe Bryant; it doesn't start until 9:00.