The postgame comments of Stan Van Gundy and Tony DiLeo are sure to hog the headlines of tonight’s Magic victory. But underneath the drama, Rashard Lewis played a brilliant offensive game and scored several key baskets down the stretch.

With the Magic up 82-76 with 3:11 to play, the Sixers were mounting a comeback and the Magic were forced to call a timeout. On the ensuing play, The Magic went straight to Rashard Lewis on the wing. Lewis turned, took a couple dribbles, beat Thad Young to the low block and put in a floater over his head. It was a key basket — no points there, and the Sixers have a chance to make it a one possession game.

He upped the lead to 10 with a floating jump shot on the next possession, showing as much assertiveness as I’ve ever seen him play in a Magic uniform.

For the game, Lewis finished with 24 points (13 in the fourth) on 9-of-16 shooting including 3-of-5 from 3-point range. It was Lewis’ best performance of the playoffs, and one of the better performances I can remember in the last few months.

“My confidence has always been the same,” said Lewis, referring to the first five games of the series. “I’ve got to give a little bit of credit to the Philadelphia defense. They’ve been taking me and Turk out and making the other guys beat them.”

It was refreshing to see Lewis take the ball to the hole. The 60 percent from 3-point range is nice, but Lewis really does his best work close to the hoop. It’s been tough watching him these first four games, as he has settled for jump shots and taken what the defense gave him (nothing).

Tonight, the Sixers left Young alone on Lewis even as Lewis progressed closer to the basket. The weak-side help wasn’t even there — of course, the help defense was preoccupied with keeping a body on Dwight Howard. Lewis can be a real weapon in the post. Young isn’t strong enough or polished enough to consistently slow him down on the block.

Stan Van Gundy agreed: "They're doing such a good job taking his jumpshots away on the perimeter by staying home on him and only rotating off our guards. [The low post] is about the only place we can take him down to get some shots. And the great thing with putting him down there is he does a great, great job passing out of double-teams. So if you come down there we're going to get good shots."

The Magic are going to need another big game out of Lewis in Game 6, especially if Howard is forced to miss a game or Courtney Lee’s injury turns out to be more serious than we thought. Turk is having too many problems with the talented Andre Iguodala, and Rafer Alston can’t be relied on to put the ball in the hoop more than a half-dozen times a game.

Lewis may be the Magic’s most important player for the rest of this series.