The Cincinnati Bengals were both lucky and good Sunday, while former quarterback Carson Palmer was neither in his first trip back to Paul Brown Stadium since his trade to Oakland.

The Cincinnati defense battered Palmer repeatedly, forcing him into a pair of turnovers while limiting him to one of the lowest yardage totals of his career. And the Bengals offense used a season-high 221 rushing yards, three Andy Dalton touchdown passes and one extremely fortunate whistle to score a 34-10 victory in a game that featured three ejections.

“Well I think our guys had some emotions,” Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. “It’s done. It’s over. Everybody can move on. We are where we are. Carson’s where he is.”

Where the Bengals are is 6-5 and in the thick of the AFC playoff race thanks to a three-game winning streak, while Palmer and the Raiders are on a four-game slide that has dropped them to 3-8.

The frustration from the month-long losing streak combined with having a momentum-swinging defensive touchdown called back because of an inadvertent whistle led to a fourth-quarter brawl that resulted in Cincinnati’s Andrew Whitworth and Oakland’s Lamarr Houston and Tommy Kelly being ejected.

“They, in my opinion, took a little bit of a cheap shot at (quarterback Andy Dalton), and Andrew came to his rescue, plain and simple,” Lewis said.

The fight, which started when Houston tackled Dalton after referees had blown their whistles for a false start, came one play after Oakland had appeared to cut the Cincinnati lead to 24-17 on a 25-yard fumble return for a touchdown by Tyvon Branch.

“We felt like we were going to get the ball,” Oakland coach Dennis Allen said. “That was difficult for us to swallow. It was unfortunate.”

After the penalties and ejections were sorted out, Dalton hit A.J. Green with a 48-yard pass on third-and-11. The play extended a drive that ended with Dalton finding tight end Jermaine Gresham for a 7-yard touchdown for the game’s final score with 3:39 remaining.

“It was a big break to get the opportunity to go back at it again and them not either having the ball there or a touchdown,” Lewis said.

For the first 30 minutes, it didn’t appear any sort of breaks would be needed. Dalton threw a pair of short touchdown passes to rookie Mohamed Sanu, BenJarvus-Green Ellis added a 1-yard score and Mike Nugent kicked a career-long 55-yard field goal to give the Bengals a 24-0 lead at halftime.

Green-Ellis finished with a season-high 129 yards, giving him back-to-back 100-yard games for the first time in his career. The Bengals as a team accumulated 221 rushing yards, their most since putting up 253 in 2004 in a 58-48 victory against Cleveland.

“I think the best part of today was the ability to run the football,” Lewis said. “It paid dividends.”

Dalton also had a solid game, completing 16-of-30 passes for 210 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. It was the third game in a row in which he didn’t throw a pick after tossing at least one in the first eight.

Palmer, meanwhile, was booed every time he stepped on the field and completed just 19-of-34 passes for a season-low 146 yards with one TD and one interception.

“Not a lot went right from start to finish,” Palmer said.

And plenty went right for the streaking Bengals, who have won three consecutive games by at least 18 points for the first time since 1976 to draw even with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the final wildcard spot in the AFC.

“We had to overcome October,” Lewis said, referring to the four-game losing streak that dropped the Bengals to 3-5. “We need to have a better December than we had in November. That’s our key right now. That’ll give us a chance for a great January.”