Playing without Howard and injured guard Courtney Lee, the Magic thumped the Sixers from the start. Howard, who was suspended one game by the NBA for his elbow on Sixers center Samuel Dalembert in Game 5, will return when the Magic play the winner of the Boston-Chicago series.
Rashard Lewis scored 29 points and Rafer Alston had 21 to help the Magic win for the second time this series in Philadelphia. The Magic's decisive run came early when they made 12 of their first 19 shots.
Howard served his suspension in a downtown Philadelphia hotel and watched the game with family and friends who had made the trip to watch him play. Instead, they got to watch him type. And misspell.
An early blog post read "lets cheer my boys on goo magic." Thankfully for the Magic, their shooting was more accurate than their big man's grammar.
Alston hit two 3-pointers during the Magic's fast start that put them up 15 and quickly negated the home crowd. J.J. Redick made all three 3-point attempts in the first half and ably filled in for Lee.
Lee had surgery on his fractured sinus Thursday and coach Stan Van Gundy said it was possible the guard could possibly be out two more weeks.
Howard's inadvertent elbow to Lee's head in Game 5 knocked him out of the series.
The live blog posts and tweets of Howard, who has donned a Superman cape in slam dunk contests, were infinitely more interesting than this lopsided game.
His happy recap:
- Howard expressed remorse for his errant elbows: "i wish i was playin. i never intended to hurt nebody or my team."
- He proved he could pick the star player: "i told jj he was gonna have a big game this morning."
- His first-half food order: "i had some french fries. pizza. and some wings. lol food for champs."
- And when the Magic turned this into a romp: "keep it up boys. yooo yall cheer us home now."
Hedo Turkoglu wasn't around to see the end of the game. He tussled with Dalembert in the paint, the two briefly locking up before teammates rushed over to separate them.
Turkoglu was hit with his second technical of the game and was ejected, pointing and yelling at Dalembert from the bench before he was quickly ushered into the locker room.
Dalembert also was whistled for a technical for "hostile action" in the fourth-quarter skirmish but remained in the game. Van Gundy kept starters Lewis, Alston and Marcin Gortat, who had 11 points and 15 rebounds points filling in for Howard, played until the final horn.
Three games in this series were decided by three points or less, not exactly foreshadowing this kind of blowout.
Andre Miller scored 24 points and Andre Iguodala had 20 for the Sixers, who were eliminated in the first round for the second straight season and face a cloudy offseason.
The Sixers never made a serious run in this game and were booed off the court at the end of the third quarter.
Notes: Former Sixers GM Billy King sat in the front row next to team chairman Ed Snider. ... Phillies SS Jimmy Rollins and actress Raven Simmone attended the game. ... The Magic were eliminated by Detroit in the second round last season. ... Philadelphia has not won a playoff series since beating New Orleans in the first round in 2003.
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