This was supposed to be the easy game for the Miami Heat , the one respite in a brutal 13-game stretch where every other opponent is a playoff contender.
It turned out to be quite the challenge.
Dwyane Wade scored 41 points, LeBron James added 25 points, nine rebounds and seven assists and the Heat pulled away in the fourth quarter to beat the Washington Wizards 121-113 on Friday night.
The win moved Miami (43-16) a half-game ahead of idle Boston (41-15) in the Eastern Conference, even though the Celtics’ winning percentage of .732 tops the Heat by three one-thousandths of a point.
Chris Bosh scored 15 points and Mario Chalmers finished with 14 for the Heat, who have won a season-best seven straight at home.
Nick Young scored 38 points for Washington, which got 24 points and 12 assists from John Wall and an 18-point, 17-rebound night from JaVale McGee. The Wizards were within two points late in the third quarter, before falling to 1-28 on the road.
Miami lost in Chicago on Thursday and its next 11 games are against teams that expect to be in the playoff chase, starting with a Sunday night matchup against Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and the new-look New York Knicks .
A night after shooting 1 for 18 in the loss to the Bulls, Bosh bounced back a bit, shooting 5 for 12 from the floor. He also had eight rebounds.
On this night, his shooting didn’t matter much: Wade made a season-high 18 shots on 27 attempts.
Young was an absolute matchup nightmare for Miami much of the night, carrying Washington for long stretches and finishing with his second-highest scoring game of the season, topped only by a 43-point outburst against Sacramento on Jan. 11.
He twisted his left ankle early in the third quarter, already having scored 27 points in 24 minutes. After getting re-taped, Young returned, but simply wasn’t as explosive as he seemed in the early going.
And perhaps it was no coincidence that when Young cooled a bit after the ankle twist, Miami pulled away.
A 20-8 Heat run just about sealed it, capped by Wade hitting the 40-point mark with a layup with 5:24 left for a 108-94 lead. Young made three free throws after getting fouled by Chalmers 26 feet from the basket with 29.5 seconds left, getting the Wizards within five, but James finally put it away with two free throws 1.7 seconds later.
Washington’s lone road win came against lowly Cleveland, and seven of its road losses are by more than 20 points.
It felt more like home in this one. For most of the way, anyway.
Young had 10 points in the first quarter, escaping injury when he leaped over the scorer’s table, and Washington used a 22-9 run to build a five-point lead after the opening 12 minutes.
Then Wade took over.
He went on one of his most scintillating runs of the season – making nine straight shots, the last eight of them in a span of just 3:38. He scored 18 of Miami’s first 19 points of the second quarter, hitting everything from high-arcing touch shots in the lane, turnarounds from the baseline and pullup 3-pointers followed by a shout to the Heat bench.
Even with that, Miami couldn’t get separation.
James made sure Miami would take the lead – such as it was, 63-61 – into the break after intercepting Yi Jianlian’s pass, driving down the left side of the floor, splitting two defenders and finishing a three-point play after drawing contact from Josh Howard with 1:24 left.
But Wall nailed a 3-pointer over James’ outstretched arm later in the half, and Washington didn’t go away after the break, either.
The Wizards got within one point on four occasions in the third quarter, even tying the game once. Young missed the final 7 1/2 minutes of the quarter with the ankle injury, and the Wizards shot 5 for 17 over the remainder of the period after he tumbled to the court in pain.
Source:SI.com
