The little things that were going wrong down the stretch for the Miami Heat during their five-game losing streak didn’t go wrong tonight. Dwyane Wade had eight of his 20 points in the fourth quarter and the Heat got a few breaks on the defensive end — Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ non-goaltend, the no-call on Wade’s baseline reach-in on Kobe and LeBron’s box-out flop against Artest — and Miami was able to get one giant monkey off its back.
After a fairly nightmarish game against the Blazers on Tuesday (along with some fairly inappropriate grumbling about the quality of his looks), Chris Bosh came up big, posting 24 points and nine rebounds, outplaying Pau Gasol, who posted 20 points and five boards. Mike Miller (12 points, seven rebounds) was also big off the bench and Mike Bibby (six points) chipped in with two key three-pointers in the second half.
For his part, LeBron James (19 points, nine assists, eight rebounds) didn’t shoot the ball all that well, but his near-triple-double was crucial to the Heat’s success. He made a great decision with 2:49 to play with the Heat nursing a one-point lead. After Wade retrieved his own miss, he kicked it out to LeBron, who had a wide open three, but was 0-for-3 on the night. Instead of taking the open shot, LeBron waited for Wade to get open on the baseline and found him for the easy score. It was a mature play to pass up his own so-so shot to create a great shot for his teammate.
Kobe had 24 points, but after making his first four shots, he went just 4-of-17 for the remainder of the game. Wade did a nice job of staying in his grill and forcing him to take tough shots.
This is a huge win for the Heat, who can finally stop answering questions about why they’re playing so poorly. They host the Grizzlies on Saturday while the Lakers have to visit the Mavericks in Dallas.
