The Magic hold off the Heat

DeShawn Stevenson added 12 points and Steve Francis had 10 points and six rebounds for the Magic, who ended an eight-game losing streak to their intrastate rival, defeating Miami for the first time since March 23, 2003.

Orlando, which never trailed and held off a late surge by Miami, captured its third straight win overall to move back to the .500 mark at 6-6 for the season.

Dwyane Wade scored a game-high 21 points for Miami, which has lost two in a row and three of four overall. Alonzo Mourning added 15 points, a season-high 21 rebounds and four blocks for the Heat, who also lost to Dallas on Friday night.

Down 73-63 more than midway through the final quarter, the Heat offense finally woke up and put together an 11-3 run to cut the deficit to 76-74. Wade’s backdoor dunk with 1:30 left capped the run.

The Heat, though, could never take the lead in the final minute. Following a Mourning block on the Magic’s ensuing possession, Wade missed a jumper and Howard came down with the rebound with 54 seconds remaining. Turkoglu then missed an elbow jumper 24 seconds later for the Magic, again giving the Heat a chance at the tie or lead.

Wade had the ball for Miami and drove down the lane, but Howard knocked the ball out of bounds. After a Heat timeout, Wade inbounded the ball from the baseline to Gary Payton in the left corner. However, Payton, being pressured, stepped out of bounds with 11 seconds left to give the ball back to the Magic.

Jameer Nelson was immediately fouled on the ensuing inbounds pass and hit both free throws to make it a two possession game, 78-74. Francis added two more free throws with six seconds remaining to ice the game, 80-74.

Miami’s Shaquille O’Neal missed his 11th straight game with an ankle sprain. The Heat fell to 6-5 without their All-Star center.

Orlando carried a 20-16 lead into the second quarter and a 41-33 lead into halftime. The Magic led by just three points, 34-31, late in the second, but scored seven of the final nine points of the first 24 minutes to hold the eight-point lead.

In the third, Orlando kept the Heat at bay nearly the entire stanza. However, a 7-2 spurt by Miami to end the quarter drew the Heat within 61-54 going into the final 12 minutes. Payton’s three-pointer to end the frame capped the run and was the first bucket from beyond the arc for the Heat in seven quarters.

Miami continued to make a push in the fourth to make things interesting. The Heat drew within 66-63 on a Jason Williams bucket 3 1/2 minutes into the quarter, but Orlando answered with seven straight points to increase the lead back to 10 points with just under five minutes to go.

Williams ended with 14 points for Miami, which shot just 32.1 percent from the floor for the game.

Orlando converted on just 35.1 percent of its shots from the field.

Game Notes

The Heat went 0-for-11 from three-point range on Friday night and missed their first 10 attempts from beyond the arc in this game before hitting six of their last 11 attempts from three...Orlando has won three straight at home...Miami has dropped four straight on the road, falling to 1-4 as the visitor this season...Orlando hit 16-of-19 free throws in the second half...Mourning has 10 blocks in his last two games.