SUMMARY
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Jimmy Butler and Max Strus pumped in 31 points apiece and the Miami Heat gained the final Eastern Conference playoff spot with a 102-91 victory over the visiting Chicago Bulls in a play-in game on Friday night, April 14 (Saturday, April 15, Manila time).
Butler scored 22 points in the second half and Strus had 23 in the first. Strus made six three-pointers in the first half and seven overall for the Heat, which concluded the contest with a 15-1 surge.
Miami will be the No. 8 seed in the East and will face the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. The series starts Sunday in Milwaukee.
DeMar DeRozan had 26 points and 9 assists for Chicago, which went 3-0 against the Heat in the regular season.
Alex Caruso scored 16 points, Zach LaVine had just 15 on 6-of-21 shooting, Coby White tallied 14 points and Nikola Vucevic registered 12 points and 9 rebounds for the Bulls.
Miami’s Bam Adebayo collected 17 rebounds while Tyler Herro added 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists.
The Heat made just 41% of their shots and were 10-of-30 from behind the arc.
Chicago shot 43.9% from the field, including 8-of-28 from three-point range.
White’s triple gave the Bulls a 90-87 lead with 3:47 left before the Heat went on the dynamic game-ending run.
First, Miami got baskets from Herro and Butler and two free throws by Adebayo to take a 93-90 edge with 1:41 to play.
After DeRozan split two free throws, Strus buried a three-pointer with 1:14 left to give the Heat a five-point lead.
Strus was fouled by Caruso while shooting a trey with 40.7 seconds remaining and made all three free throws to make it 99-91 as Miami closed it out.
Butler scored the first five points of the third quarter to give the Heat a 54-44 advantage.
Chicago answered with a 16-4 surge. LaVine capped it with a thunderous dunk to give the Bulls a 60-58 lead with 5:53 remaining in the period for the team’s first lead since 2-0.
Miami responded with seven straight points, culminated by Kevin Love’s trey with 2:42 left to take a five-point lead.
Chicago scored eight of the final 10 points, with DeRozan converting a three-point play with 13.2 seconds left as the Bulls led 68-67 entering the final stanza.
Another three-point play by DeRozan gave Chicago a 76-72 lead with 9:51 remaining. Just 84 seconds later, he converted another three-point play to give the Bulls an 81-75 advantage.
A short time later, Butler scored seven points and fed Strus for the tying basket as a 9-3 run allowed the Heat to knot the score at 85 with 5:01 left. – Rappler.com
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