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  Thursday, Dec. 30 7:30pm ET
New Jersey 102, Orlando 92
 
  RECAP | BOX SCORE | GAME FLOW

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) _ It took New Jersey Nets coach Don Casey a while to make believers out of his team, and the recent results are startling.

Stephon Marbury had 21 points and 13 assists Thursday night as the Nets held Orlando scoreless in the last 3:14 and scored the game's final 10 points in a 102-92 victory.

``I feel very good about this win,'' Casey said after the Nets won their fourth straight overall and set a season record with their ninth consecutive home victory. ``What's happening now is big guys are making big plays.

``They are dedicated players now. The passion is there. We've defended our home turf.''

Marbury, passing more and shooting less than he did early in the season when the Nets were struggling, gives a lot of credit to Casey and his staff.

``We're playing good, hard, smart basketball,'' Marbury said, ``and good team defense. The coaches are coming up with great game plans and we're playing with intensity.''

Keith Van Horn, who added 20 points, agreed with his teammate.

``It wasn't our offense that won this game, it was our defense,'' said Van Horn, who was still suffering the effects of the flu that kept him from playing in Tuesday's 89-83 win over the New York Knicks. ``We made some big stops and Jaime Feick made a couple of big blocks down the stretch.

Van Horn said Orlando tries ``to beat you by outworking you. Over the last three minutes, I think we outworked them.''

The nine straight home wins broke the single-season mark of eight set in 1993-94 and tied the team record of nine that spanned the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons.

Orlando dropped its third in a row.

``It was a bad loss for us because it was a game that we had a chance to win on the road,'' Magic coach Doc Rivers said. ``There were nine or 10 times we got back in it, but we couldn't get over the hump. We just didn't get it done.

The Nets led 90-84 after Van Horn scored with 5:33 to play, but the Magic rallied as Darrell Armstrong sandwiched 3-pointers around a drive by Marbury to make it 92-90. A pullup jumper by Tarik Abdul-Wahad with 3:14 to play tied the game at 92, but those would be the last points the Magic scored.

Marbury gave the Nets the lead for good with 2:46 remaining when he took a long pass from Feick and sliced between Chris Gatling and Corey Maggette for a three-point play.

Kerry Kittles followed with two free throws, Van Horn drove and dunked and Kittles closed the scoring with 1:30 to play with a 3-pointer.

Feick had 16 points and 15 rebounds. Abdul-Wahad and Armstrong each had 18 points for the Magic.

Notes: The Magic are the only NBA team with a losing record (6-7) at home and a winning record (9-7) on the road ... Nets guard Elliott Perry is one of four NBA players who have chipped in to donate $10,000 to a nine-year old Memphis boy who lived for a month with his mother's corpse because he feared being placed in foster care. The other players, who along with Perry are natives of Memphis, include Penny Hardaway and Todd Day of Phoenix and Lorenzen Wright of Atlanta. ... The Magic are now 7-2 in the second night of back-to-back games.

 


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