Magic beat Heat, Howard wants to finish season

By KYLE HIGHTOWER
Posted Mar 14 2012 1:45AM
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) 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."

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