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Wizards fell to Magic, lose grasp on sixth place in East

Apr 18, 2007 - 4:34 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- The Orlando Magic are peaking at the right time while the Washington Wizards are headed in the opposite way.

Hedo Turkoglu scored 26 points and Dwight Howard had 17 points and 12 rebounds as the Magic posted a 95-84 victory over the Wizards, who wasted 48 points by Antawn Jamison.

Orlando (39-42) is now just one game behind Washington (40-41) for seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings. The Magic need a win coupled with a Wizards loss Wednesday to avoid facing top-seeded Detroit in the first round of the playoffs.

"We can only concern ourselves with what we can do," Howard said. "We've got one more game left and it's going to be on us to win that game. We can't look for anybody else winning or losing for us to move up. We've just got to take care of business."

The Magic have won five of their last six outings.

Without Gilbert Arenas (knee) and Caron Butler (hand) in the rotation, Washington has now lost eight of its last 11 contests to fall behind idle New Jersey (40-41) for sixth place.

"It doesn't matter who we play because we have to play good basketball no matter what," Washington guard DeShawn Stevenson said. "If we get Toronto and we don't play good basketball, we can get blown out. Same with all of the other teams, so it doesn't matter who we play as long as we go out there and play hard."

Jamison made 14-of-26 shots, including 5-of-6 from 3-point range, and sank 15-of-24 free throws for his first 40-point performance since April 8, 2003.

"I was just trying to get baskets," Jamison said. "I have done it before (scored 50) so it was not like it was an agenda once I got closer and closer to 50. I was not really worried about it until the last couple free throws. I was just trying to do everything possible to win the game."

Washington trailed by 12 points at intermission but stormed back in the third with a quarter-ending 16-7 burst capped by Brendan Haywood's eight-foot jumper for a 73-69 lead.

Late in the fourth, Carlos Arroyo drained a jumper and Grant Hill made 1-of-2 foul shots as Orlando snapped an 88-88 tie with 1:45 remaining.

Stevenson split a pair of free throws, cutting the lead to 91-89, but Hill fed Turkoglu for an 18-footer off the high pick-and-roll with 23 seconds to seal it.

"(Turkoglu) was great offensively," Orlando coach Brian Hill said. "Sometimes you just have to find the guys that have something going and Turk had it going. We were just trying to ride him and Grant down the stretch. He's been that way down the stretch for us."

In the second quarter, the Magic lost former No. 2 overall selection Darko Milicic with a sprained right ankle.

"It's a bad sprain. I'm going to take an MRI (Wednesday)," Milicic said. "It hurts really bad but we'll see what the MRI shows. The doctor said that I didn't break anything, but he said it's a bad sprain."