NEW ORLEANS – Carl Landry scored 17 points and the New Orleans Hornets snapped a nine-game losing streak with a 93-67 victory over the Orlando Magic on Friday night.
Marco Belinelli added 15 points and Jason Smith 14 for New Orleans, which won for only the fourth time this season against 15 losses. Jarrett Jack added 11 points and nine assists.
Dwight Howard had 28 points and 16 rebounds, but was the only player in double figures for the Magic, who appeared to be still reeling from blowing a 27-point lead in a loss to Boston a night earlier. Starting in with the third quarter against the Celtics, the Magic have now gone six straight quarters without scoring 20 points in any of them.
Orlando shot only 39 percent (24 of 61) and turned the ball over 23 times, the most by any Hornets opponent this season. New Orleans converted those turnovers into 28 points.
The Magic played most of the game without Jameer Nelson, who was limited to less than 11 minutes of action after taking a shot in the jaw in a collision with Jack as the Hornets guard drove to the hoop.
The lone bright spot for the Magic was the one player who apparently would rather play elsewhere, given the constant trade speculation surrounding Orlando's star center, who memorably wore a Superman cape while winning the 2008 All-Star dunk contest in the same arena.
Howard was 9 of 14 shooting and got to the free-throw line 17 times, although he made only 10 foul shots. The rest of his team combined to go three of four from the foul line and 15 of 47 shooting (32 percent).
The Hornets, by contrast, shot nearly 51 percent (41 of 81) and outrebounded Orlando 43-36 while turning the ball over a relatively low 13 times.
The Hornets led by 13 at halftime and then scored the first seven points of the third quarter, starting with Trevor Ariza's driving layup and ending with Belinelli's third of four 3-pointers in the game to give the Hornets a 54-34 lead.
The gap never got smaller than 14 points after that and climbed to 28 — the largest lead the Hornets have held in any game this season — on reserve DaJuan Summers' 3 late in the fourth quarter.
The Hornets took their first lead on Belinelli's 3 six minutes into the game and did not trail again. Landry's 13-foot jumper capped an 11-2 run that gave New Orleans a lead as large as nine, at 20-11, in the first quarter.
Orlando rallied back into 26-all tie in the second quarter when JJ Reddick hit his second 3, but the Hornets surged back ahead by outscoring the Magic 21-8 the rest of the period. Aminu's three-point play on a floater in the lane as he was fouled gave the Hornets a 12-point lead late in the quarter. Soon after, Okafor reached nine points with a tip-in in the closing seconds of the half that gave New Orleans a 47-34 lead at the break.
Notes: The lineups of the two teams included four players born in Louisiana: Davis, Chris Duhon and Von Wafer for Orlando and Carldell "Squeaky" Johnson for New Orleans. ... Duhon, meanwhile, is a distant cousin of the Hornets' Jack, whose parents grew up in Louisiana and met at Grambling State. Jack had more than 30 relatives in the stands. ... Actor Will Ferrell, who is in New Orleans to film the political comedy "Dog Fight" and will be the featured celebrity guest in the Bacchus Mardi Gras parade next month, sat courtside with fellow comedian Jason Sudeikis. They were part of an announced crowd of 16,176.
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