Contrary to what was reported earlier, Vince Carter will try to play today, but he will not start.

Starters

Orlando Magic

Dwight Howard
Brandon Bass
Matt Barnes
J.J. Redick
Jameer Nelson

Charlotte Bobcats

Tyson Chandler
Boris Diaw
Gerald Wallace
Raja Bell
Raymond Felton

Final: Magic win 93-81.

End of 3rd Quarter: Magic lead 77-71

• The Magic once led this game by 22.
• The Magic were terrible on defense in the quarter. The Bobcats scored 30 points on 12-of-17 shooting. The Bobcats are the league’s worst offensive team in terms of efficiency.
• Raymond Felton is killing the Magic right now. He had 12 points in the quarter alone and has 18 for the game.
• Nazr Mohammed has 11 points and has done a very good job against Dwight Howard.
• Brandon Bass has scored just 2 points since the first quarter.

Halftime: Magic lead 57-41.

• The Magic played much better defense, holding the Bobcats to just 6-0f-14 shooting from the field.
• Orlando’s defense cooled off but Vince Carter scored 9 points on three three-pointers in his first game back.
• Dwight Howard had 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists.
• Mickael Pietrus has 10 points.
• Orlando’s bench has 25 points while Charlotte’s has 12.
• Orlando is shooting just under 56% from the field (24-of-43) and 6-of-12 from beyond the three-point arc.
• Orlando has 16 assists compared to 8 turnovers.
• The Magic did let the Bobcats scored the half’s final 6 points and Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy did not look happy.

End of 1st Quarter: Magic lead 35-23

• The Magic did not play very good defense, letting Charlotte, a very poor offensive team, go 12-of-23 from the field and score 23 points.
• Luckily, the Magic were great on offense, scoring 35 points on 16-of-26 shooting.
• Brandon Bass really stepped in in the opening quarter. He shot 6-of-6 from the field and scored 12 points.
• Matt Barnes had 7 points.
• Dwight Howard scored just 6 points, but had 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and a contributor at NFL Mocks Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)