Wade to the rescue: Heat drops Bulls

Miami took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
MIAMI (AP) -- Same old story: With the Miami Heat in trouble, Dwyane Wade saved the day.
Wade hit a spinning jumper in the lane with 1:04 left to halt a frantic Chicago rally, and blocked Ben Gordon's layup with 26 seconds remaining to ensure that Miami would beat the Bulls 115-108 Monday night and take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference first round series.
Jason Williams and Shaquille O'Neal each had 22 points for Miami, which saw what was a 20-point third-quarter lead cut to four with 1:15 remaining. But Wade added 21 points, seven assists, five rebounds and four steals for the Heat, who tied a franchise playoff record with six players in double figures.
Antoine Walker -- who played the first 40:20 without a rest, filling in for the suspended Udonis Haslem -- added 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Heat, who also got 12 points from James Posey and 11 from Gary Payton.
Andres Nocioni led all scorers with 30 points -- on 13-for-15 shooting -- for Chicago. Kirk Hinrich had 17 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter for the Bulls, who will play host to Game 3 Thursday night.
The Bulls allowed 111 points or more four times in the regular season. The Heat now have done it twice in this series, and shot 52 percent on Monday.
Not so fast
Walker scored off an offensive rebound with 8:12 to go, giving Miami a 102-84 lead -- and a two-game series lead seemed all but certain.
Five minutes later, those prospects were precarious, at best.
Hinrich hit three straight jumpers -- a personal 7-0 run -- to get the Bulls within 102-91 with 4:52 to go, and he scored four more points in what was a 13-2 Chicago burst that cut Miami's lead to 104-97 with 3:00 remaining.
Wade found Walker for a layup at the 2:46 mark, and hit a jumper 59 seconds later to push Miami's lead back to 108-99. Once again, the Bulls weren't done -- Hinrich scored, and after Wade missed from the same spot he'd hit from one possession earlier, Nocioni hit a 3-pointer with 1:15 left that got Chicago within four.
But Wade scored on the next trip, Nocioni threw the ball away on Chicago's next possession, and Miami could soon exhale.
No guarantees
No one need remind Chicago how a 2-0 series lead guarantees little; the Bulls blew a two-game lead in the first round against Washington last season, dropping the next four games. But recovering is a daunting task; the Bulls have prevailed only once in 14 previous playoff series after starting with two losses.
The Heat have taken 2-0 series leads on five other occasions, and won them all.
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