Howard: I want to finish season with Magic

Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. — First, the Orlando Magic earned one of their biggest victories of the season. Then Dwight Howard turned the tables on what has been the biggest player soap opera of this NBA regular season.

Minutes after the Magic came back for a thrilling 104-98 overtime victory over the Miami Heat on Tuesday night, Howard took back his preseason trade request and said he’s told team officials that he wants to stay with the team for the remainder of the season.

“Well, I told those guys, I’ve been telling them for the past two or three weeks now that I want to stay and finish the season,” Howard said.

“I told them I feel we have a great opportunity to win and I told them that I want to be here and I want to bring a championship here. I told them they’ve got to give me that chance. They didn’t trade me at the beginning of the season and I told them I’d go out and play as hard as I could every night to put our team in a position to win.”

Howard had 24 points and 25 rebounds, and Jameer Nelson scored 25 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter and overtime, but the story was what happened after the final buzzer.

Howard said in the preseason that he wanted to be traded, potentially ending a seven-year relationship for the only franchise the 26-year-old, three-time Defensive Player of the Year has known. He has the option of terminating his current contract and becoming a free agent in July.

Now those plans appear to be off for now, on a night when he could have conceivably played his final home game in a Magic jersey.

“We’re third in the East and playing great basketball,” Howard said. “I don’t want to see that slip away. We have to take a chance and I think we have a great chance to surprise a lot of people by winning.”

There’s still a chance the Magic could deal him before Thursday’s deadline, of course, but that would appear unlikely. Now it would seem the onus would shift now to the Magic to bring in players to ensure he won’t leave anyway in a few months.

Howard said his decision has been in the works for a while.

“We’ve been talking for a while,” he said. “I told them that I want to finish this season out and give our team and our fans some hope for the future. I feel they have to roll their dice. It might be tough, but I feel like we have a great opportunity. They’ve got to roll it.”

Howard made sure it was a memorable night for the fan base that seemed ready to say goodbye to him.

It was the eighth 20-20 game of the season for Howard and 40th of his career. It helped the Magic overcome a 14-point, first-half deficit to win their third straight and fifth in six games.

Dwyane Wade scored 28 points and Chris Bosh 23 for the Heat, who had a three-game winning streak snapped. LeBron James added 19 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

The Heat visit Chicago on Wednesday in a matchup of the East’s top teams. Orlando goes to San Antonio for its final game before the trade deadline.

Even Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy acknowledged before the game that all the Howard drama had to be on his players’ minds. He shrugged off an ESPN.com report from earlier in the day that Howard had been told by team officials he could decide the fate of Van Gundy and general manager Otis Smith if he signed a contract extension.

“If anybody thinks I care about that, I really don’t give a damn about being fired,” Van Gundy said. “That doesn’t concern me in the least. … If they want to fire me to please somebody, fire me.”

He went as far as to say the most disappointing thing about the season-long Howard speculation is that his team’s actual game performances have been secondary. After Tuesday’s nail-nibbling win, Van Gundy wasn’t in the mood to discuss anything more about what could happen the next two days.

“For tonight we’re actually going to give a (expletive) about the game,” he said.

Howard scored the first basket of the extra frame and Orlando took a 100-96 lead on Nelson’s running layup. Following an offensive foul on Mario Chalmers, Nelson scored again on a twisting layup in the lane to increase it to six with under a minute left.

Wade trimmed it back to four and Howard missed a pair of free throws on the Magic’s next possession to give the Heat hope with 26 seconds to play.

Wade missed a 3-pointer from the top of the key and Howard was fouled again. He missed two more free throws, but James also came up empty on a 3-point try.

“They executed and made more plays in the overtime,” James said. “We’re not going to hang our heads over this one. We played hard.”

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra had the same assessment.

“Some second chances, some big, big plays there in the second half,” he said. “In the third quarter we didn’t play our best basketball (and) gave them life, gave them an opportunity to get back in the game, get some confidence and they took full advantage of that.”

Notes: The Magic played without starting G Jason Richardson (sprained left ankle for the second consecutive game. It was the ninth game he’s missed this season. Reserves Von Wafer and Earl Clark also were unavailable. …Heat F Mike Miller also missed Tuesday’s game with a sprained left ankle.

LAKERS 116, GRIZZLIES 111

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Andrew Bynum had 37 points and 16 rebounds, Kobe Bryant scored 22 of his 34 points after halftime and the Lakers beat the Grizzlies.

Pau Gasol added 14 points and eight assists for the Lakers, who won their third straight.

Marreese Speights led the Grizzlies with 25 points, while Marc Gasol finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Tony Allen had 18 points, and O. J. Mayo scored 14, but was 7 of 25 from the field. Mike Conley finished with 10 points and 11 assists for Memphis.

The Grizzlies took an early lead in the second overtime, but the Lakers clicked off six straight points, including a pair of baskets by Bynum, for a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.NUGGETS 118, HAWKS 117, OT

DENVER — Nene scored 22 points, Ty Lawson had 21 points and seven assists and Denver rallied to beat Atlanta in overtime.

Joe Johnson scored 34 points and Josh Smith had a season-high 33 points and 13 rebounds for the Hawks, who had a chance to win it at the buzzer.

Trailing by one with 3.5 seconds left, Atlanta got the ball to Zaza Pachulia at the foul line with. He drove the open lane before Danilo Gallinari rotated over, and Pachulia missed a layup off the glass as time expired.

Gallinari had 19 points in his best game since returning from a severely sprained left ankle.

Johnson took control in overtime after Smith fouled out, scoring seven straight points in overtime.

ROCKETS 104, THUNDER 103

OKLAHOMA CITY — Courtney Lee and rookie Chandler Parsons each scored 21 points, Patrick Patterson blocked Serge Ibaka’s point-blank putback attempt in the final 2 seconds, and Houston charged back from an 11-point deficit in the last 3 minutes.

Lee drilled a 3-pointer from the left corner with 15 seconds left to complete a 13-1 run in the final minutes for Houston that was aided by a technical foul against Oklahoma City All-Star Russell Westbrook.

Kevin Durant led the Thunder with 28 points but missed a turnaround jumper from the top of the key in the closing seconds after fumbling the ball and recovering. Ibaka grabbed the rebound but his follow try was swatted from behind by Patterson.

RAPTORS 96, CAVALIERS 88

CLEVELAND — Jerryd Bayless scored 20 points, Andrea Bargnani added 17 and Toronto beat Cleveland for the third time this season.

Bayless started in place of injured point guard Jose Calderon and added seven assists while leading the Raptors to just their 14th win.

The Cavs had their winning streak stopped at three. Cleveland blew a chance to move into a virtual tie with New York and Milwaukee for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Antawn Jamison, who has been mentioned in trade rumors, led the Cavs with 20 points. Rookie Kyrie Irving scored 14 and Alonzo Gee 16.

The Cavs were still within six points in the final minute when Bargnani rebounded his own miss and dunked.

PACERS 92, TRAIL BLAZERS 75

INDIANAPOLIS — Lou Amundson scored a career-high 21 points to help Indiana snap a four-game losing streak.

Amundson shot 10 for 11 from the field and grabbed eight rebounds for the Pacers. His previous season high in scoring was 11, but he had 13 points in the fourth quarter alone.

Paul George, Danny Granger and George Hill each added 11 points for the Pacers. Hill returned after missing two games with a sprained left shoulder.

LaMarcus Aldridge scored 17 points and Nolan Smith added 10 for the Trail Blazers, who shot a season-low 31.3 percent from the field and made a a season-low 20 field goals. Portland’s five assists were the fewest by an NBA team this season.

MAVERICKS 107, WIZARDS 98

DALLAS — Dirk Nowtizki scored 27 points, Jason Terry had 24 and Dallas got a much-needed victory.

The defending NBA champions had lost eight of their previous 10 games. That included three road losses in three nights before a welcome two-day break leading into consecutive home games against the league’s two worst teams.

Rodrigue Beabuois, who also had a couple of acrobatic plays to prevent turnovers, added 19 points. He had five in a row in less than a minute early in the fourth quarter to put the Mavs up 92-79.

Trevor Booker had 20 points for the Wizards (9-32).

The only team with fewer wins than Washington is Charlotte (6-34), which plays in Dallas on Thursday night.

WARRIORS 115, KINGS 89

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nate Robinson, David Lee and Brandon Rush all scored 17 points, and Golden State shook off the trade of leading scorer Monta Ellis.

The Warriors greed to send Ellis, forward Ekpe Udoh and center Kwame Brown to Milwaukee for Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson, a person with direct knowledge of the deal told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal had not been announced.

The stunned Warriors then got 15 points from Charles Jenkins, 14 points and 10 rebounds from Dorell Wright, and 14 points from Klay Thompson.

DeMarcus Cousins had 19 points and 12 rebounds for the Kings, who lost their second straight home game.