The Miami Heat came away with a hard-fought 106-98 win over the Chicago Bulls on Thursday at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Miami now has four games remaining in the regular season and plenty of work left to do. The Heat remain involved in a tightly packed Eastern Conference playoff picture. Miami can still finish anywhere from the three-seed to the six seed, with home-court advantage hanging in the balance. With the Atlanta Hawks also winning on Thursday, the Heat remain a half-game back of the third seed.
The Bulls who entered the game fighting for their playoff lives took a six-point lead into the locker room at the half. Miami would answer back when the teams returned to the court however, and took a six-point advantage of their own into the final quarter. In the fourth quarter, the teams will battle and exchange leads in a high-energy 12 minutes.
With Hassan Whiteside battling a thigh injury, Amar'e Stoudemire saw a slight uptick in his workload and he answered the call. Stoudemire contributed ten points including a big basket down the stretch of the fourth quarter. Whiteside who typically plays big minutes towards the end of games watched from the bench during part of the fourth.
Whiteside would re-enter the game with about four minutes to play and took over. After delivering a big block that turned into a score for Miami, Whiteside would add another score of his own. The young center single-handedly turned a Chicago run into a Miami run to help his team put the game away. Whiteside ended up finishing with 16 points, 12 rebounds and a block.
Goran Dragic stayed hot with a double-double as the guard posted 16 points and 12 rebounds along with four assists. Dragic has been playing at a high level recently and has been a big reason for Miami's success.
The Heat will play the second game of a back-to-back on Friday when they visit Orlando at 7 p.m.
