Howard collected 23 points and 13 rebounds for his 16th double-double of the season as the Magic got key contributions from reserves Pat Garrity and Hedo Turkoglu in a 105-90 victory over the slumping New York Knicks.
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Howard dominated the paint for most of the first three quarters, collecting 20 points and 11 boards as Orlando built a 72-62 lead.
But Howard was on the bench when the Magic used a potent 3-point attack to put away the Knicks away. Orlando opened the fourth quarter with a 20-8 run as Garrity and Turkoglu hit two 3-pointers apiece to increase the lead to 92-72 with 6:03 remaining.
When Howard came back with less than three minutes remaining, the Magic already had finished off the Knicks.
Turkoglu, who has made 51 percent (24-of-47) of his 3-pointers in the last 15 games, finished with 18 points on 4-of-5 from behind the arc. Garrity scored a season-high 17 points on 5-of-7 from 3-point range.
"They had miscommunications and didn't help each other," Turkoglu said. "They left us open all the time."
"It was just the way they were playing the pick-and-roll," Garrity said. "Jameer (Nelson) and (DeShawn) Stevenson did a great job of stringing the defense out. It just creates open shots. That's why we got such good open shots."
Orlando, which entered as the league's fourth-most accurate team from 3-point range, shot a blistering 61 percent (11-of-18) from downtown.
"We're not known as a 3-point shooting team," said Magic coach Brian Hill, who picked up his 200th win with the team. "We had a lot of good looks and those are our two best perimeter shooters, Hedo and Pat Garrity. Fortunately tonight, we knocked them down.
"Pat just shot the heck out of it tonight. It's not that he's not a good 3-point shooter. He didn't have to hurry anything. He got some good shots and he knocked them down."
The biggest positive of the night was the return of Grant Hill. After missing 19 games with a hernia injury, he scored seven points in 23 minutes.
"It was fun to be out there," Grant Hill said. "It was good to be out there with the guys."
Hill was on the court when Orlando began to pull away for good. He capped a 29-15 second quarter with a 3-pointer at the buzzer as the Magic took a 54-39 lead into the locker room.
"It was kind of what I expected," Brian Hill said. "He got tired early but made a big bucket at the end of the half there. I think if anything his legs maybe got a little bit heavy on him. But we kind of expected that."
After playing 13 of their first 20 games on the road, it was another tough night for the Knicks, who have dropped four in a row. They have allowed opponents to hit 49 percent (23-of-37) from beyond the arc in the first two games of a stretch that has them playing 17 of 25 at home.
"In the second half we got beat on penetration," New York coach Larry Brown said. "They could find just about anybody. We didn't do a good job on a couple of pick-and-roll plays that allowed for a couple of 3-pointers."
Eddy Curry paced the Knicks with 23 points and Quentin Richardson added a season-high 16 for the Knicks, who have lost six of seven overall and three in a row at home.

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