Miami, FL – The Miami Heat finished off the undermanned Chicago Bulls in five games despite blowing an early 18-point lead Wednesday.
Dwyane Wade played through a knee injury and scored six of his 18 points down the stretch as the Heat held on for a 94-91 win to reach their third straight Eastern Conference final.
LeBron James paced Miami with 23 points, eight assists and seven rebounds as the defending champions took the final four games of the series after losing the opener at American Airlines Arena.
Chicago, short on bodies but not in effort, squandered an eight-point lead entering the fourth quarter and had two chances in the final seconds to tie it, but Nate Robinson and Jimmy Butler both missed 3-pointers.
Robinson scored 21, Butler had 19 and Carlos Boozer finished with game-highs of 26 points and 14 rebounds for the Bulls, who played the entire series without Derrick Rose, Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich.
The previous three meetings were decided by an average of 23.3 points, and Miami was poised for a smooth closeout victory with a 22-4 start to Game 5.
Chicago had other plans.
"There was no quit in them," Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau said of his bunch. "They came out and hit us hard. You knew we were going to have to withstand the early surge. I knew we'd fight back."
The Bulls chipped away at the huge deficit, led by six at the break and stayed in front the entire third quarter, which ended with them holding a 77-69 lead.
Shane Battier hit two 3-pointers in Miami's 13-4 run to open the fourth, with Norris Cole sinking a left-wing jumper for an 82-81 Heat lead.
Wade, who left the game momentarily in the second half to have his knee examined, showed no signs of the injury shortly thereafter. He drained consecutive jumpers to keep the Heat in front, then timed his jump perfectly from the baseline to throw down a putback slam off a miss, putting Miami ahead by a 93-86 margin with 3:02 remaining.
"He finds a way to make big time plays," Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said of Wade. "It's great to see him respond like that."
Boozer scored off the offensive glass and Robinson got a contested 3-pointer to fall around James' 1-for-2 effort at the stripe, pulling Chicago within 94-91.
Boozer drew iron on an attempt at the elbow with just over a minute to go, then had a loose ball knocked off his leg by Wade at the other end.
Wade committed a foul going after a James miss with 27.4 seconds on the clock, giving the Bulls one last chance to get even. Boozer controlled the offensive rebound on Robinson's miss, and Butler's tentative attempt missed everything but the backboard as the buzzer sounded on Chicago's season.
Miami made its first seven shots and jumped out to a seemingly comfortable 22-4 lead 6:35 into the game. James added a monster alley-oop to momentarily halt a 6-0 Bulls run, then hit an 18-footer just before the buzzer for a 30-21 Heat advantage.
Chicago shook off the early cobwebs and scored 17 of the first 23 points in the second quarter to take its first lead. Butler hit two from long range during the seven-plus minute string, including one that gave the Bulls a 38-36 lead they didn't relinquish until Cole's basket early in the fourth.
Robinson ended his 11-point quarter with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that extended the Bulls' cushion to 53-47 at the break.
Chicago exceeded its Game 4 point total midway through the third when Boozer scored inside for a 67-60 lead, which ballooned to as many as 11 in the frame.
Game Notes
The Heat's previous eight playoff wins were all by double digits ... Chris Bosh and Udonis Haslem chipped in 12 and 10 points, respectively, for Miami, which scored 27 points off 16 turnovers ... Chicago got 15 points from Richard Hamilton and held a 40-32 edge on the glass.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.