ORLANDO -- One singular moment that Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard might cherish most from this night happened quite apart from his numerous dunks, his timely passes and the dozen free throws he knocked down with a confidence he rarely has shown before.

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It happened so quickly, was done with such subtlety, that it's possible only a handful of people witnessed it. With 41 seconds left, Howard had the ball in the low post and was turning toward the basket, and Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James grabbed him with both arms and wrapped him up with an intentional foul. Both players dropped their arms, and a quick low-five was discreetly exchanged -- a gesture that seemed congratulatory on James' part, conciliatory on Howard's.

"It was all love, no bad blood there," Howard said of his Team USA pal. Howard one-upped the superstar by playing the game of his career, a 40-point, 14-rebound offensive masterpiece that put the Magic into the NBA Finals as they defeated the Cavs 103-90 on Saturday night.

They don't call him Superman for nothing. Especially on a night when he shot 14-for-21 from the field and 12-for-16 from the line, handed out four assists when the Cavs were forced into triple-teaming him and sacrificed some of his defensive intensity for the good of the team, realizing that aggression in the paint would lead him into foul trouble.

Yes, he finished with five personals. But Howard was never in foul trouble when the game was still relatively tight. That allowed him to channel his energy toward being a dominant scorer who became deserving of his touches because he kept converting them. In Game 6, Howard had 52 touches, 40 of them in the paint, compared to 18 total touches in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Boston. In the entire Eastern Conference finals against Cleveland, he made only one shot from outside the paint while attempting only four.

Earlier this month, Howard had ripped Magic coach Stan Van Gundy for failing to provide him with more touches and had seemed to lack maturity both on and off the court. In this series, the 23-year-old center has grown up before our eyes. One sign of that was his demeanor in the locker room after Saturday's game. As Howard scrolled through the text messages on his cell phone ("Biggest one so far is from Spike Lee," he said), he offered this reply to one of his buddies who stopped by to congratulate him: "Ain't finished yet."

Indeed, he isn't, but he's moving on to face an opponent likely to give him more problems than the one he just finished bulldozing. The Lakers have plenty of big men in their rotation along with several spare parts at the end of their bench who all have six fouls to use, so Superman can expect to get battered and bruised by not only the likes of Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol but probably also Josh Powell and D.J. Mbenga, if that's the speed-bump-filled route Lakers coach Phil Jackson chooses to use to neutralize Orlando's most powerful interior force.

Howard shot 70 percent from the line in this six-game set and seemed to gain confidence from the stripe as the series moved along, and the Magic used their other primary offensive weapon -- the 3-point shot -- with remarkable aplomb, averaging a shade more than 10 3s per game while making them at a 40-percent clip.

"They [the Lakers] have a low-post game," Orlando point guard Rafer Alston noted. "The Cavs' game was LeBron on the perimeter and LeBron on the low block. [Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas] stepped out and became a jump shooter.

"But the Lakers have Gasol down there, they can put [Kobe] Bryant down there [and] depending who's guarding [Lamar] Odom, he can slide down there. So not only do they have a post game, they have a perimeter game, and that's going to be a challenge for us." Los Angeles already has been installed as a 6-point favorite for Game 1 on Thursday night at the Staples Center, where the Magic will have to put the elation of this accomplishment behind them as they take their game to the league's ultimate stage.

"What are you guys going to do for commercials now?" one Orlando fan shouted at a TV personality, a reference to the number of Kobe-LeBron spots that have been running throughout the first six weeks of this postseason.

"There will be no puppets of me. I'm not that big, I'm still small," said Magic swingman Mickael Pietrus, who will find his profile getting larger by the day because he likely will be the best option the Magic have for defending Kobe Bryant. (Van Gundy said he had toyed with the idea of replacing Courtney Lee with Pietrus as the starting shooting guard Saturday night but ultimately decided against it.)

"When we run, defend and rebound, we can defeat anybody. That's the mentality we have to take into the next series," Howard said from the postgame podium. "If we do what we can do best, we can beat anybody."

Earlier, in the locker room, I had asked Howard to give me one or two reasons I should consider picking the Magic to defeat the Lakers.

"God" was his answer, which was met with the counterargument that the Lord probably has better things to worry about than who wins a basketball game, and besides, religion and politics are usually best kept out of sports stories.

"That's the reason, I'm telling you," Howard replied. Pietrus offered the view that Rashard Lewis would be the key to the series for the Magic. My belief is that Alston could be a major positive factor for Orlando if he can keep his playground style in check and use his speed and handle to force the defense to collapse.

But a better, deeper thought came from the mouth of Magic owner Rich DeVos, who was wearing an Eastern Conference champions cap as he compared this Orlando team to the last Magic team that went to the NBA Finals -- the 1995 squad led by Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway that was swept by the Houston Rockets.

"This is a more secure team, better balanced, speedier, and all these guys can hit the 3," DeVos said. "We'll be the underdogs, but as long as we get a fair shake on the refereeing, we'll be fine."

They're fine for the moment, that's for sure. They've dethroned the defending champs. They've knocked off the team with the league's best record. They sent LeBron James scurrying from the building speechless on Saturday. And now they're going to El Lay.

Can they compete? Yes.

Can they win? Maybe.

Do I think they will? No.

So the prediction here is Lakers in 7, barring the divine intervention that Howard predicted would be the difference-maker.

Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider. To e-mail Sheridan, click here.

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