It wasn't surprising the 22-year-old Howard made a loose reference to a children's fable, saying Yao the giant "was like a big beanstalk. You got to chop."

Yao easily won the matchup of conference all-star centers as the Houston Rockets defeated Orlando 100-95 Saturday night to end the Magic's league-best five-game winning streak.

The freakish 7-foot-6 Yao started strong and finished strong, scoring 22 points, grabbing 13 rebounds and luring the 6-11 Howard into early foul trouble.

Howard, who dominated the Pacers with five blocks in the Magic's win at Indiana on Friday night, played only 27 minutes, scoring 13 points and hauling in nine boards.

Point guard Jameer Nelson continued his stellar play, leading Orlando with 21 points and six assists. Rashard Lewis had 18 points, but was an icy 6 of 21 after going 9 of 12 against Indiana 24 hours earlier. The bench was solid with 34 points, including 13 points from J.J. Redick.

Rockets guard Tracy McGrady scored 17 points in yet another return to face his old team.

Despite playing without small forward Hedo Turkoglu (flu) and shooting the ball horribly (31.7 percent) in the second half, the Magic trailed just 94-90 with two minutes, 14 seconds left.

The Magic had muddled through and stolen games down the stretch with clutch plays, but the Magic also came in with the dubious distinction of not beating a team on their soft schedule currently over .500 this season.

And it wouldn't come against the Western Conference-cured Rockets (9-5). Yao hit a beautiful turnaround jumper against Howard -- an artful stroke for a 310-pounder -- to give Houston a six-point cushion. Howard could only envy Yao's offensive menu.

"His turnaround jumper. Nobody can block it unless you're 7-foot-8," Howard said.

The Rockets were never threatened after that, continuing to make Amway Arena their home away from home, winning for the seventh consecutive time in Orlando.

The Magic, who had previously won nine of 10 games with some timely defense, blew some assignments. The Rockets shot 54 percent in the second half. Ron Artest, Houston's new acquisition, hadn't done much until slipping away to nail a 3-pointer midway through the fourth.

"I didn't think we made an inordinate amount of defensive mistakes, but we did make more than a couple in the second half and they made us pay," said Coach Stan Van Gundy, noting his team's 2-of-15 shooting from 3-point range after intermission.

Without Turkoglu, the Magic started Keith Bogans at shooting guard and moved the starter, Mickael Pietrus, to small forward.

A key move by Van Gundy was to activate veteran Adonal Foyle, who had been activated just once this season. Foyle (7 rebounds, 4 points) relieved Howard and used his 280 pounds to bother the towering Yao with Howard on the bench.

Yao set the tone early against Howard. He was on the floor for about seven minutes in the first half after picking up three fouls while Yao had 10 quick points.

" I needed to get a couple scores on Dwight Howard so I could make him play defense," Yao said.

"Honestly, I feel it's getting harder and harder every year to play against Dwight. He's getting so much stronger and he's learned a lot of new skills."

Just not enough to get the best of the giant atop the beanstalk.