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Magic-Heat: 56k | 300k |
Miami placed Wade -- the team's second-leading scorer -- on the injured list prior to the game due to a bone bruise in his right wrist. But the lowest-scoring team in the league displayed some rarely used weapons en route to its best output of the season.
"As players, when guys go down, everybody has to bring their game up a little bit," Jones said. "You can't play in the same mode when you have key guys hurt. You've got to step it up a little. Our whole mind-set was be aggressive, get everyone involved. I knew we didn't have the young fella, so we definitely needed to push our game up."
Rafer Alston started in Wade's place and made four 3-pointers in the first quarter as Miami jumped out to a 40-24 advantage. It was the highest-scoring quarter of the season for the Heat, who average just 21.5 points in the first quarter and 42.8 in the first half this season.
"I felt like I could make one from the half-court stripe," Alston said. "The basket looked like an ocean. It was great to finally start hitting some shots. My consistency has been a problem for the last five years, but tonight it felt great. Every time they kicked me the ball, I thought I could make it."
"(Alston's) shots got us off to a good start," Miami coach Stan Van Gundy said. "Against a zone, Rafer is able to set his feet, and he is a pretty good shooter when he can get his feet set."
Miami made seven 3-pointers in the opening 12 minutes -- matching the franchise record for any quarter -- and finished with an season-high 11 on 22 attempts.
Orlando used an 18-4 run to pull within 103-101 on a hook shot by Drew Gooden with 1:53 remaining, but Miami scored the game's final nine points.
"We can't afford to spot a team 16 points in the first quarter, come back and then expect to pull it out in the end," Magic coach Johnny Davis said. "It's too difficult to play basketball that way, because everything has to be perfect for us to win the game."
Alston finished with a season-high 18 points and Malik Allen added a season-high 14 off the bench for Miami, which has won nine of its last 13 games.
Orlando's Tracy McGrady collected 22 points and 10 assists but made only 5-of-18 shots.
Gooden scored a career-high 29 points and grabbed 11 rebounds off the bench and Juwan Howard added 22 and eight for Orlando, which has lost three straight for the first time since ending its franchise-record 19-game slide Dec. 8.
"If it's not one thing, it's another thing with us right now," Gooden said. "We have to come out and play a complete game. We don't have the luxury of coming out and making mistakes. We lagged in every quarter. We are not at that level yet, we're not that caliber of a team to do that."
