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Dolphins 34, Raiders 14

Reggie Bush leads Miami Dolphins in win over Oakland Raiders

 

The inspired Dolphins continued their late-season surge, holding the Raiders to 46 yards rushing in another home victory.

mnavarro@MiamiHerald.com

These wins probably will not end up doing much more than hurt the team’s draft position in the end, but the Dolphins are wrapping up the 2011 season as a fun-to-watch and pretty impressive team at home.

Sunday’s 34-14 throttling of the AFC West-leading Raiders in front of 57,225 at Sun Life Stadium was the third win in a row for the Dolphins on their home turf — and the second in a row here without the slightest bit of drama in the fourth quarter.

How much fun was it? Reggie Bush, who ran for 100 yards and a touchdown and helped the Dolphins dash for a season-high 209 yards on the ground against Oakland, took a vicious hit from Raiders linebacker Aaron Curry at the start of the fourth quarter and celebrated by doing pushups.

“I wanted to let them know their hits weren’t going to affect me at all,” Bush said.

For a team that won just once at home last season and started this season 0-7 overall, little has bothered the Dolphins of late. In the past five games they have outscored opponents 139-54, with the lone loss coming on a last-second field goal at Dallas on Thanksgiving.

What if they had only started so hot? Receiver Davone Bess, who scored the first touchdown as the Dolphins raced out to a 34-0 lead, said everyone in his locker room would be lying if they said the thought didn’t creep in now.

“There’s times when we all look back and be like, ‘Man, if only we finished two or three games here, this whole thing could be going a whole different direction,’ ” Bess said. “But we’re not losing hope. We’re just trying to win as many games as possible and letting everything else fall in its place.”

On Sunday, just about everything fell into its rightful place for the Dolphins. It started with the domination at the line of scrimmage. The Raiders, who came in with the fourth-ranked rushing offense in the league, ran 14 times for 46 yards. Bruising tailback Michael Bush finished with just 18 yards on 10 carries.

“Defensively, we made the game one-dimensional,” Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said. “That’s what we wanted to do.”

Offensively, even with starting right guard Vernon Carey out, the Raiders — who came in with 32 sacks — hardly breathed on Dolphins quarterback Matt Moore.

“I thought John Jerry did a tremendous job stepping in there,” Sparano said.

Dan Carpenter kicked a pair of field goals — 48 and 33 yards — to give the Dolphins a 6-0 lead in the first quarter before the Raiders finally picked up their first first down. Bess then beat Curry on a crossing pattern, making a nice catch in stride before zipping into the end zone for what turned out to be a 12-yard touchdown catch from Moore with 8:24 left in the second quarter.

The Dolphins, who led 13-0 at halftime, then jumped on the Raiders right away in the second half. Rookie Clyde Gates returned the second-half kickoff 77 yards to the Raiders’ 25-yard line. Two plays later, Bush ran through a gaping hole between left guard and left tackle for a 1-yard touchdown.

“A lot of space up front [Sunday],” Bush said. “We came in at halftime [and] our emphasis was to attack them the first drive, put points on the board. We knew that if we did that, we knew we would pretty much control them for the rest of the game.”

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