A.J. Green was right. The New York Giants defense did have a lot of holes. So did their offense. So did their special teams.

And the Cincinnati Bengals exploited all three with a bunch of big plays that filled in the biggest hole of all, the gaping zero sitting in the Bengals win column the last five weeks.

Quarterback Andy Dalton threw a career-high four touchdowns passes and the defense came up with four turnovers to lead the Bengals to a 31-13 victory against the defending Super champions Sunday afternoon in front of 56,614 at Paul Brown Stadium.

“We did some things that we had been lacking over recent weeks,” Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. “We made plays at critical moments.”

The win moved Cincinnati to 4-5 and kept alive the team’s slim playoff hopes, while the Giants lost their second in a row to fall to 6-4 heading into their bye.

Green raised the ire of some New York players earlier in the week when he said in a radio interview with New York station WFAN that the Giants defense “has a lot of holes.”

He made good on the comment on the fifth play of the game when he beat Corey Webster for a 56-yard touchdown.

“Those comments were definitely misunderstood,” Green said after the game. “I’m not the kind of guy to talk bad about an opponent. Their defense is great. They have the best front four in the game. We were able to break some big plays.”

Regarded by many as the best front four in the game, the Giants weren’t even the best front four on the field Sunday afternoon. Cincinnati sacked Eli Manning four times, intercepted him twice and stripped him once.

Defensive end Wallace Gilberry turned one of the sacks into a fumble recovery. Defensive end Carlos Dunlap added 1.5 sacks and a fumble recovery. And defensive tackle Pat Sims, who was playing his first game since Nov. 2011, recorded his first career interception.

“Today was the first day that we all clicked,” Dunlap said. “We’ve got too many playmakers to doubt ourselves. All the playmakers made plays today.”

Including defensive back Adam Jones, who returned the game’s first punt 68 yards to set up a Dalton to Andrew Hawkins 10-yard TD pass that made it 14-0 just 4 minutes and 7 seconds into the game.

Jones also forced an Ahmad Bradshaw fumble that Dunlap recovered in the third quarter when the Giants were at the Bengals’ 14-yard line with a chance to cut the deficit to 17-13.

“The playoffs started today,” Jones said. “We just need to keep everything going and keep playing together. Eli is Eli. He always plays good. Today, we won.”

The Bengals forced two more turnovers in the third quarter and converted both of them into a pair of Dalton 10-yard TD passes, one to Jermaine Gresham and one to Mohamed Sanu.

“(Turnovers) won the game for us, getting the ball with great field position and scoring when we got down there,” said Dalton, who finished 21-of-30 for 199 yards with the career-high four TDs.

“It was a big win for us today,” he added. “We knew early on that this week was going to take our best effort to win today, and that’s what happened.”

Manning finished 29-of-46 for 215 yards and failed to throw a TD pass for the third consecutive game.

With the win, the Bengals have a chance to even their record and get back in the playoff mix next week at Kansas City against a 1-7 Chiefs team that owns the worst record in the NFL heading into tonight’s game against Pittsburgh.

“We’ve got to keep the same urgency and the same intensity and understanding that we had this week to go play on the road,” Lewis said. “Each one of our games means a lot. We can’t waste any more opportunities.”