Wade leads Heat past Chicago Bulls
This was Familiar Script Night at the United Center.
Derrick Rose missed the second half with an injury and the Chicago Bulls, coming off an impressive win at Cleveland on Saturday, followed up a big victory with a thud.
They lost at home Monday to a Miami Heat team that had dropped seven of its last eight games.
Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade knocked down a pair of long jumpers to break a tie in the final 1:02 as Miami won 89-84. The Bulls lost their fourth straight home game. Wade, 34, led the way with 28 points in his hometown.
Rose, the Bulls' Chicago-bred guard, wasn't around for the finish of this one. He had 4 points and 1 assist in 13 minutes during the first half.
Actually, it was two injuries for Rose. He didn't come back after halftime because of lower back and right hamstring issues. Less than two weeks ago, Rose missed a game with a sore knee.
"Derrick, he was great this morning," Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said. "Something happened between the shootaround to game time where he got a little bit of soreness. Unfortunately, it got worse and we had to sit him."
E'Twaun Moore (hamstring) and Kirk Hinrich (thigh bruise) both were unavailable Monday, leaving Aaron Brooks as the only healthy point guard during the second half. None of the three injuries are expected to be long term.
The Bulls (25-19) led by 9 points in the third quarter but went cold in the fourth, getting outscored 28-16. The Bulls hit just 6 of 20 shots in the final quarter, with Jimmy Butler going 0-for-3 and Brooks 1-for-7. Pau Gasol led the Bulls with 19 points.
"The fourth quarter got tough on us and we didn't handle it very well," Hoiberg said. "(The offense) was great early because we were moving the ball. I think we had 12 assists with nine minutes left in the second quarter and only had 6 the rest of the way.
"I don't know if Derrick's absence had something to do with it. Obviously, missing wide-open shots had something to do with that. But then, for whatever reason, the ball stopped and we ended up taking tough shots."
The Heat went ahead 74-73 on a Gerald Green 3-point play with 7:13 left in the fourth. The Bulls scored on five straight trips but couldn't pull away, then missed 4 straight shots and the Heat went ahead 84-82 on a Justise Winslow dunk of a pass from Wade with 2:14 left.
Gasol tied it with a baseline jumper, before Bosh drained a 20-footer off a pick-and-roll with Wade to make it 86-84 with 1:02 left. Gasol missed a turnaround and Wade finished off the win by burying an 18-footer over Gasol with 22.5 seconds remaining.
"We just tried to make them take tough shots," Wade said. "We knew that Jimmy and Pau would be the ones taking the shots, so we just played them tough."
Former Bulls forward Luol Deng, making his second trip back to the United Center since being traded to Cleveland on Jan. 7, 2014, scored 9 points for Miami.
Deng and the Heat made just one trip to Chicago last season and it was known as the Hassan Whiteside game, with the Miami center collecting a triple-double with 12 blocked shots in a Heat victory.
Whiteside was out Monday with a hip strain. Gasol seemed to enjoy the lack of a rim protector, scoring 13 points in the first quarter.
This was the last home game for the Bulls until Feb. 10. They'll begin the seven-game, 12-day ice-show road trip Thursday against the Los Angeles Lakers.
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