Howard was all elbows last night

The Orlando Magic's franchise player Dwight Howard showed up to play some basketball in last night's Game 5 of the opening round play-off series against Philadelphia.

The result was a big 91-78 win for the guys in blue and white in what Coach Van Gundy has called "the swing game" of the series.

Unfortunately, his intensity may not only land him in trouble with the NBA, it also may have injured one of his own team mates.

The trouble began when he elbowed the 76'ers center Samuel Dalembert. Even as a Magic fan, yours truly must concede it was pretty blatant. And, it was more than stupid to be so blatant when the NBA commissioner was sitting right there in the O-rena. It could very well mean that Howard will miss Game 6 on Thursday.

To make matters worse, just a couple of plays after the Dalembert incident, Howard inadvertently knocked one of his own team mates in the nose: rookie shooting guard Courtney Lee. The poor guy stumbled from the court and had to have a CT scan. Don't know what the results of that were, but Lee is now questionable for Game 6, too.

I know there have been calls right here in this dryer (and elsewhere) for the Magic to step-up their intensity in this series. Dwight Howard certainly did that last night, hanging 24 points on the scoreboard and pulling down 24 rebounds (including nearly double the number of offensive rebounds that the entire 6ers team managed). But, you can't just play hard. You've got to play smart. When you don't, people get hurt.

OK, so, lessons learned, hopefully. Let's put this series to rest so we can move on to Round 2!