Derrick Rose may have been the MVP in the regular season, but he isn't ready for the big show quite yet.
The Miami Heat won Game 4 in overtime by the score of 101-93 and went up 3-1 in the series.
Given, they did what they were supposed to do, and covered their homecourt advantage. But with that, the Miami Heat are one game away from the NBA Finals.
Lebron James had another huge game, going for 35 pts, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists. Chris Bosh added some big shots down the stretch in the 4th quarter, and in OT, finishing with 22 pts and 6 rebounds. Dwayne Wade had what you would call a terrible game. He shot 5-16 from the field, and had 14 pts. Even going 33 straight minutes without scoring a single point. But even with Wade not having a good game, the Heat still managed to get a win. Overtime was where the "Big 3" shined, scoring all 16 pts in overtime for the Heat and leading the the way to victory.
Even though the Heat didn't play their best basketball tonight, they still got the win. That's what tough teams are made of, and their defense carried them once again, getting stops when they needed to.
Lebron James, and Dwayne Wade both had some huge individual defensive plays in the 4th quarter and OT. Lebron forced Rose to take an awful last second shot with 1.9 seconds remaining in regulation, and sent the game into OT. Then in overtime Wade got a huge block on a Rose 3 pt attempt. At that point the momentum had really swung in Miami's favor, and got the Heat up by 2. The Heat would never trail again.
Once again the Miami Heat shut down Derrick Rose, and forced others to make plays. That didn't bode too well. Rose once again had a bad shooting performance going 8-27 from the field and 1-9 from behind the arc. The Heat defense also forced Rose to have 7 turnovers, and a total of 19 from the Bulls team. Your best player, and point guard can't shoot that bad against a team that isn't giving up many points throughout this entire playoffs. Rose has shot 36% in the series against the Heat, shooting a combined 33-91 from the field. Rose had this to say after the game: "Tonight, definitely it was on me. I had two opportunities to end the game. Couldn't do it. If anything, learn from it. Too many turnovers. Really was my fault but I'm going to learn from it." That sums it all up.
The Bulls did get good play out of Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng, who both scored 20 pts and each shot 50% from the field. But, the next highest scorer on the Bulls was Ronnie Brewer, who had a whopping 7 pts. The Chicago Bulls as a team shot 6-24 from the 3 pt line, and as a team shot 40.2% from the field. That just won't get it done with a team as good as the Miami Heat, who are a much more efficient team. The Miami Heat took 12 less shots, and had less turnovers than the Bulls.
The Bulls turnovers, and bad possessions down the line is what killed them. The Bulls also only shot 22 free throws compared to the Heat's 38 attempts. The Heat were taking it to the Bulls, and getting intot he lane. The Bulls weren't repaying the favor on the other side of the court, and was the single reason alone that the Heat had more free throw attempts.
Heading back to Chicago after this tough of a loss will sure be interesting to see how the Bulls will respond. After the game the players looked and sounded deflated. Will they come out with energy at home for one last stand at taking back this series? Or will they come out and play like an already beaten team?
With both of the series at 3-1, I think we can go ahead and say that we can expect another Dallas Mavericks vs Miami Heat Finals matchup. This time, it's a completely different look, for both teams.
Two of the hottest players in Dirk Nowitzki and Lebron James meeting head to head in the Finals should make for an awesome series.
But first, both teams need to close out their opponents.
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