Let me dominate.

That was Dwight Howard's message to head coach Stan Van Gundy following the Orlando Magic's Game 5 loss to the Boston Celtics.

Howard was not in the mood for excuses. The Magic collapsed for the second game in a row and blew yet another late fourth-quarter lead. Rather than looking to clinch the series in Game 6 on Thursday, they now find themselves in the hole 3-2.

Orlando’s star center was dumbfounded – and upset – at how his team ended up on the brink of elimination.

“I’m not going to get up here and bash or say anything about what should happen, but I will say it’s tough to win when all season long you play inside-out and you trust one of the people that got you off to a good season,” he said. “I think I’m capable of scoring the post so, I just don’t think 10 shots, I don’t want to say it’s all about offense. You've got a dominant player, let him be dominant.”

In contrast to Howard's 10 shots, Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Rafer Alston each had at least 14 attempts. Despite playing without two of their big men, the Celtics were only outscored by eight in the paint.

Howard can't score, though, if he's not on the court. Up 52-46, Van Gundy pulled Howard with 7:18 left to play in the third quarter. He sat on the bench until the start of the fourth.

The Magic were up 83-74 with just under six minutes to play before Van Gundy subbed in Rafer Alston and Rashard Lewis for Anthony Johnson and Tony Battie. Two minutes later, he replaced Mickael Pietrus with J.J. Redick. The Celtics went on a 12-2 run after those substitutions took place, taking the lead in the process. Howard was baffled by the decision to take out a unit that had been in control of the game.

“The coaches have to recognize what’s working on the floor and stick to it. Even if you don’t have your starters in, the guys you put the most trust in. You've got to have trust in everybody,” Howard said. “When you’re in the situation where, okay, guys got it going, you know everybody’s moving the ball and the energy is up, you have to stick with it. You have to stick with what works. When you take out certain guys and you know some guys have to get into the flow of the game, it’s tough. Especially when you’re playing against a team like Boston. They might make a couple of shots and we might miss and their momentum is high, you've got to stick with what works.”

Howard says he isn't looking to stir up tensions with his coach. He knows he can improve his play and isn't claiming to be perfect.

“I think I just have to be more aggressive, run, demand the ball,” he said. “I don’t want to get into it with my coach and go back and forth with him. It’s really about defense. I might not get a lot of touches even though I feel like I should. I might not get those touches but I have to be able to go on the other end and defend without fouling. We all have to be able to play team defense, that’s what got us the big lead tonight. Then we capitalized and we did score. We got the lead, and every game we’ve been leading going into the fourth quarter has been defense and we tend to lose, I will say, that motivation, that drive.”

Howard's frustrations go beyond his coach. The recurring theme around the Magic locker room was the advantage conferred upon the Celtics by their title-winning experience. Courtney Lee said championship teams get stops down the stretch. Mickael Pietrus noted the Celtics made them feel their experience from last season. Hedo Turkoglu claims they “get away with some stuff.”

Howard doesn't want to hear anything about that.

“We can’t use excuses when we win or lose. It’s not about experience, it’s about effort,” he said. “The last couple of games when they’re down, they pick up their intensity and they pick up their effort. It’s not about experience. When you want something you have to go and try to go to get it. Collectively at the end of the game, those guys wanted it more than we did and that’s how it gets cut back from big leads.

“As a team we have to stop hanging our heads and stop getting frustrated when things don’t go our way offensively, defensively, whatever it is. Everybody on our team has fallen into that category of when things aren’t going our way, whether it was bad calls or missing shots, whatever it is, we tend to get frustrated. If we want to win this series, we can’t do that.”

Maybe, just maybe, if the Magic want to win the series they should try letting Howard dominate.