1) LeBron
2) Kobe Bryant
3) Dwyane Wade
4) Dwight Howard
5) Chris Paul

No longer can critics question Superman for not offensively taking over important games.  He single handedly won game 6 for the Magic and brought them to the finals.  Now, a championship is the only thing between him and true greatness.  So will Dwight Howard and the Magic win this years championship?  Our prediction to come!

But in this 20th go-around, the wands seem to be working. This edition of the Orlando Magic may finally be the one to pull an NBA title out of a hat, wrote columnist Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times.

For the men of Coach Stan Van Gundy, and star player Dwight Howard, the roller coaster has had few dips. This time, the parade down Main Street could be about tall guys, not dwarfs.

Kobe Bryant had 28 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists for Los Angeles, but missed two jumpers in the waning moments. The triple-double was the 15th of Bryant’s career, but his first since April 1, 2005.

Howard’s double-double was his league-leading 30th of the season.

Nelson scored 10 of Orlando’s final 12 points, including hitting one of his three 3-pointers with 35 seconds left to put the Magic up 104-103. He was good on four free throws afterward as the Magic built a five-point lead on the way to their sixth straight win.

All the Orlando starters scored in double figures, with Rashard Lewis getting 15, Hedo Turkoglu 13 and Courtney Lee 12.

Lamar Odom had 17 points for Los Angeles, and Vladimir Radmanovic had 15, all coming on his 5-of-8 shooting treys. Andrew Bynum had 14 points and three rebounds, but scored just two points after halftime and again was outplayed by Howard, who also blocked three shots.

Although they didn’t match their NBA record-setting spree of 23 3-pointers they made in their last game, the Magic had a telling edge over the Lakers from beyond the arc, going 12-of-28 to Los Angeles’ 9-of-26. Lewis hit four of his eight 3-point attempts and Nelson came up big at the right time, hitting all of his 3-point attempts in the fourth quarter after missing the three he took earlier in the game.

The Magic were coming off a 139-107 rout of Sacramento where they established the league record for 3-pointers.

Down 54-44 early in the third quarter, the Magic put together a 19-6 run to take their first lead of the game, at 63-60 on Lee’s 3-pointer midway through the period. They went on to pull out to a 69-60 lead, but the Lakers came back to retake the lead at 75-74 on Pau Gasol’s tip-in just before the buzzer ending the third.

While Los Angeles never trailed in the first half, the Magic kept it close. Gasol’s 16-foot jumper for a 45-36 lead with 4:16 left in the second quarter was the Lakers’ widest margin of the half, and they led 52-44 at the break.

Bynum had 12 points and Bryant had 10 – on 5-of-7 shooting – with seven assists by halftime. Howard led Orlando with nine points, but made only two of his eight shots from the floor. He finished 8-of-18 from the field and 9-of-16 from the line.

Bynum came into the game having averaged 18.2 points in the Lakers’ previous five contests. But in their 106-103 loss on Dec. 20 in Orlando, he had three points and five fouls in only 12 minutes.

Radmanovic had the hot hand from outside early, going 3-of-5 from beyond the arc and scoring nine points to help the Lakers to a 23-20 lead at the end of the first quarter. Neither team had a player in double figures in the opening 12 minutes, and no Magic player had more than four points.

Notes:@ The Lakers were coming off a 112-111 loss at San Antonio. … G Sasha Vujacic returned for Los Angeles after missing two games with back spasms, but he didn’t score in his 13 minutes on the court. … Bryant had 41 points while Nelson scored 27 in the Magic’s win over Los Angeles in Orlando last month. Bryant scored 28 in the Magic’s last visit to Los Angeles, when they beat the lakers 104-97 on Dec. 2, 2007.

Jameer Nelson scored 24 points, and Dwight Howard had 14 points and 13 rebounds to help the host Orlando Magic win for the seventh time in eight games, 90-78 over the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday night.

Howard picked up his fifth foul halfway into the fourth quarter and went to the bench. That wasn’t anything new for the Magic, who played the last two games with the All-Star center sidelined by a sore knee.

Rashard Lewis finished with 15 points, and Hedo Turkoglu had 11. The Magic improved to 20-6 to open a 4 1/2-game lead over second-place Atlanta in the Southeast Division.

Thus far 2008-2009:

• 24 games
• 36.4 minutes per game
• 56.9% from the field
• 60% from free throw
• 14.1 rebounds per game
• 1.4 assists per game
• 2.7  turnovers per game
• 0.8 steals per game
• 3.8 blocks per game
• 20.8 points per game

Career:

• 352 games
• 56.9% from the field
• 10.0% from 3 pt
• 60% from free throw
• 12.4 rebounds per game
• 1.4 assists per game
• 2.9 turnovers per game
• 0.9 steals per game
• 1.9 blocks per game
• 16.8 points per game