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Howard and Minnesota’s Nikola Pekovic had a testy exchange in the fourth period. After Pekovic...

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Howard and Minnesota’s Nikola Pekovic had a testy exchange in the fourth period. After Pekovic whacked Howard across the arms on a post move, Howard grabbed Pekovic’s wrist to slow him down from running the break. Then, after the two nearly came to blows while fighting for a rebound, Pekovic shoved Howard on the other end of the floor and was whistled for a personal foul. ``They have a couple of MMA fighters on their team,’’ Howard said. ``We only have one MMA fighter and that’s me. It was a very physical game. Do we like physical games? Yes, but both teams have to play through it. It is rare when you have players like Pekovic, Darko (Milicic) and (Kosta) Koufos. It is fun, but you just have to learn to play through it.’’

John Denton, BeMagic - official site of the Orlando Magic via NBA.com