Bulls’ Rose bricks chance to best Heat
MVP misses 3 shots to tie in last minute
MIAMI — The odds had to be overwhelmingly in the Chicago Bulls’ favor. Down by a point with 22.7 seconds left, Derrick Rose was heading to the line to shoot two free throws. The reigning NBA MVP had been 29-for-29 from the foul line in the fourth quarter this season.
As if the moment needed extra significance, it came against the Miami Heat, the team that downed Rose and the Bulls in last season’s Eastern Conference finals by taking the series’ last four games. Rose missed the first. Then the second. Then he missed a potentially gametying jumper with 3.7 seconds left as the Heat held on for a 97-93 win Sunday.
Lebron James scored 35 points for Miami, which never trailed yet could never relax until Chris Bosh sealed it by making two free throws with 0.1 seconds left.
“This is so surreal right now knowing that I had a chance to win the game,” said Rose, emotional at his locker afterward. “And this time it didn’t work out. . . . I let my team down.”
Bosh had 24 points and 12 rebounds and Dwyane Wade added 15 points for the Heat (15-5), who pulled within one game of the Bulls (17-5) in the East.
“Like the playoffs in January,” Wade said.
It had a little of everything. James leaped over — yes, over — 5-11 Bulls guard John Lucas for a dunk on an alleyoop pass from Wade in the opening minutes. James said afterward that he never saw the Bulls guard in his path.
Wade missed nine of his first 10 shots, air-balling the last.
James missed two free throws 5.1 seconds after Rose misfired on his in the final moment and afterward tweeted, “Man what a game! So fun and blessed to be apart of it! C’mon #6 (himself) make your d*mn free-throws!! Bulls are a great team!! Dog fight every time!”
There were skirmishes, hard fouls, pushes, shoves and screams.
“The way I see it, every time we play the Bulls, it’s going to be like that,” Bosh said. “It’s always going to be an atmosphere where nobody wants to lose, and that’s how the playoffs are.”
On the play in which he missed the free throws, Rose lost the ball on a drive but drew contact from Miami’s Udonis Haslem and went to the line. Rose’s first hit the front of the rim and bounced away. His second rimmed out. James grabbed the rebound and was fouled by Chicago center Joakim Noah.
“I couldn’t believe he missed both,” Wade said of Rose, who had 34 points. “I couldn’t believe Lebron missed both, either. Averaged itself out, I guess.”
“The ball was on our side this time,” said James, who defended Rose in the fourth quarter and in the postgame, saying Rose deserved credit for the comeback instead of simply having all of the blame for misfiring down the stretch.
So the Heat celebrated. The Bulls lamented. Just as in last season’s East finals.
“Derrick has always been someone who’s his biggest critic,” said Noah, who had a team-high 11 rebounds. “He takes losses very hard. He wouldn’t be the competitor that he is if he weren’t. At the end of the day, we have his back. I’ll go to war with him any day. I’ve never been around a competitor like that in my life.”