Heat Must Shut Down Rose to Win Game 4

If Rose is the "head of the snake," then Heat must cut off the head

The Chicago Bulls have not lost three games in a row all season, but the Miami Heat will need to break that streak tonight in order to hold onto control in the Eastern Conference Finals.

A Game 4 win puts the Heat up 3-1 and makes them virtually a lock to make their second appearance in the NBA Finals. A loss ties the series at two games apiece and allows Chicago to regain homecourt advantage.

"All we've done to this point is do exactly what they did at home," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Monday as practice wound down. "They won the first game at home and we have to find a way in a possession game to come out ahead again tomorrow night. There is not going to be one easy possession in this series."

For the Heat, the key to victory in Game 4 will be to stifle Derrick Rose once again. In the Bulls' Game 1 win, Rose, who the Heat have called the Bulls' "head of the snake," scored 28 points and shot 10 of 22 from the field.

But in the past two games, Rose scored a combined 41 points on 15 of 42 shooting, leaving the Bulls a writhing headless snake. In the fourth quarter Sunday night, the league MVP could only get off two shots and was for all intents and purposes a non-factor.

The only Bull who had any success against the Heat in Game 3 was Carlos Boozer, who scored 26 points and added 17 rebounds, his best performance of the playoffs. But the Heat can afford to let Boozer get his. He only shot 42% from the field, hardly making him unstoppable.

Plus, Boozer's teams are only 5-5 in his career when he scores and rebounds 26 and 17 in one game. If the Bulls are forced to depend on Boozer, then it means they are probably losing.

The Heat are well aware of this dynamic. "There's a reason why we're playing together," Dwyane Wade said Monday, alluding to the decision to team up with LeBron James and Chris Bosh in Miami. "After so many years of that, you want to do something else. That's the reason we're playing together."

That decision will come ever so close to yielding a trip to the NBA Finals if the Heat can ride their defense to a Game 4 victory tonight.

David Hill is a Miami native and the former owner of a youth replica Rony Seikaly jersey.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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