CINCINNATI -- Marvin Lewis' expectations for Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Margus Hunt were simple Thursday night.

The coach just wanted Hunt to dominate.

And that's exactly what he did.

With a battered and bruised Colts offensive line opposite him, and series of inexperienced backup tackles and guards shuffled in and out of the preseason finale, Hunt had no choice but to dominate. If he couldn't handle the down-on-the-depth-chart players tasked with facing him, then the Bengals would have found that they had some work left before anointing him a key piece of their pass rush.

Thanks to Hunt's focus on finishing his rushes, he didn't have to worry about that happening.

"You know, he should dominate in a game like this and he did it," Lewis, the Bengals' 12th-year head coach, said. "That's what you want to see. You want to see him dominate. That's the confidence he needs, the opportunity, the chance to critique himself."

Hunt ended the game with four tackles -- all for loss. Three of his stops resulted in sacks. One of the sacks, the last one, came as a blocker was draped all over him. Despite the offensive lineman's valiant attempt at trying to keep Hunt off his quarterback, the second-year defensive end finished the play off and secured the sack.

"A lot of guys can do good things in practice, but you have to go ahead and finish the rush [in a game], so you can kind of build through your repertoire of moves and stuff," Lewis said.

In the days that immediately followed the Bengals' loss at Kansas City during the preseason opener, Hunt emphasized how important finishing was for an end like himself. He didn't feel good about the way he cut short a few of his rushes. At least one of them could have been a sack had he not slowed his momentum so soon, he said.

Part of the problem back then had to do with the fact that Hunt and the Bengals' other defensive linemen were still looking to tap into that final bit of early-year recklessness that can sometimes be hard to showcase coming off an eight-month period in which they haven't been able to tackle. That problem got exacerbated when the linemen became used to pulling up on sack opportunities during training camp. When practicing against Cincinnati's offense, particularly the first-team unit Hunt was seeing so regularly early in camp, they weren't allowed to touch the quarterback.

They still aren't in practices.

In turn, bad habits can develop and bleed over into games. That's what happened four weeks ago with Hunt, and it's not at all what happened Thursday. He made sure to finish those plays. Hunt is confident he'll continue finishing once the regular season begins next weekend.

"It's just about speed, speed and trying to get it on the edge and trying to be disruptive," Hunt said.