Bulls 92, Heat 79

MIAMI (AP) – The Chicago Bulls swept the defending NBA champion Miami Heat out of the playoffs, winning a postseason series for the first time since the Michael Jordan era.

Ben Gordon scored 24 points, Luol Deng had 22 points and 11 rebounds and Chicago beat Miami 92-79 Sunday in Game 4 to finish off their first-round Eastern Conference series. The Bulls, who will face Detroit in the second round, became the first team to oust a defending champion in the opening playoff series since Phoenix did it to San Antonio in 2000.

The coach of that Suns team? Scott Skiles, who coaches the Bulls now – and who put together a plan that simply befuddled Miami all series long.

Dwyane Wade scored 24 points for Miami on 8-for-22 shooting, and added 10 assists. Shaquille O’Neal had 16 points, Alonzo Mourning scored 14 and James Posey had 18 rebounds – a club-record 17 on the defensive end – for the Heat.

Chicago became the 80th consecutive NBA team to advance after taking a 3-0 lead in a series; only three teams in major pro sports have overcome such a deficit, and the Heat won’t be joining the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, 1975 New York Islanders and 2004 Boston Red Sox in that exclusive club.

“Somewhere in the NBA it’s going to happen,” Heat coach Pat Riley said before Sunday’s game. “One day, one team, will do that.”

Not this day. And not this team. Riley shook Skiles’ hand at midcourt when it was over, whispered a few words of encouragement, and then he and the Heat headed to their locker room – without their crown.

Miami, which didn’t trail until late in the third quarter, got within one point twice in the fourth – first on a jumper by Wade with 11:15 left, then when Posey made a pair of free throws with 5:27 remaining. Chicago had an answer both times, and left celebrating – just as it did on Oct. 31, when it opened the season with a 108-66 stunner on the Heat’s home floor.

Wade scored with 2:32 left to get Miami within 84-79, and the Heat then turned to the Hack-a-Ben strategy – intentionally fouling the Bulls’ Ben Wallace, a notoriously terrible foul shooter – with hopes of getting the ball back.

But Wallace made all four of his tries within a 21-second span to push the lead to nine, and the white-clad Heat crowd began shuffling into the offseason. All Miami could do was stare in silence at the final seconds of an injury-plagued year that simply never went its way.

Wallace finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds and Andres Nocioni had 11 points for Chicago, which committed only five turnovers while forcing 17.

Miami scored the game’s first eight points, the first six of those coming from O’Neal – who was 6-for-7 in the opening half. But the Bulls coolly withstood the opening burst and knotted the game at 14 when Gordon hit his second 3-pointer of the quarter with 5:30 left, the first of four ties in the half.

Chicago never led in the first half and trailed 48-44 at intermission, but probably felt quite good about the second quarter.

The Bulls made only 33 percent of their shots in that period, compared to 64 percent shooting by the Heat. Chicago still outscored Miami 21-20 in the second, because it took 24 attempts (making eight) and saw the Heat manage only 11 field-goal tries – a number limited by seven turnovers in the quarter.

Plus, the Heat were plagued again by their free throw shooting. After going 16-for-35 from the line in Friday’s eight-point Game 3 defeat, Miami was 8-for-17 in the first half. O’Neal and Mourning, the Heat centers, were 10-for-11 from the field in the first 24 minutes, but 2-for-10 from the line in the same span.

And in the third, after spending 33 minutes chasing Miami, the Bulls got their first lead when Deng hit a jumper with 2:45 left. It was Deng’s third basket in an 11-2 Chicago run to end the third quarter, and when Chris Duhon hit a 3-pointer with 2.6 seconds left, the Bulls had a 68-64 lead entering the fourth.

They didn’t trail again.Suns 113, Lakers 100

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Steve Nash had 23 assists – one shy of the NBA playoff record – to go with 17 points, Amare Stoudemire had 27 points and a career playoff-high 21 rebounds, and Phoenix took a 3-1 lead over the Lakers in their first-round series.

Nash left the game to a mixed reception with 1:02 remaining and the outcome long since decided. Magic Johnson and John Stockton share the single-game playoff assist record – Johnson doing so for the Lakers against Phoenix in 1984, and Stockton accomplishing the feat against the Lakers for Utah four years later.

Shawn Marion had 22 points and 11 rebounds, supersub Leandro Barbosa scored 16 points and James Jones added 11 for the Suns.

Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 31 points, seven rebounds and nine assists, but scored only three points in the fourth quarter. Lamar Odom added 19 points, 13 rebounds and five assists, and Maurice Evans and Smush Parker scored 11 points each for the Lakers, who committed 20 turnovers to 15 for the Suns.

Nets 102, Raptors 81

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) – The New Jersey Nets made quick work of the Raptors again.

Now they head back to Toronto looking to put a quick end to the first-round series.

Vince Carter scored 27 points, Richard Jefferson added 23, and the Nets took a 3-1 lead over the Atlantic Division champions Sunday night with a 102-81 victory – their second-biggest ever in a playoff game.

Jason Kidd added 17 points, 13 assists and eight rebounds for New Jersey, which can advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals with a victory in Game 5 on Tuesday night. If the Raptors win that one, Game 6 would be back in New Jersey on Friday.

Toronto’s first postseason since 2002 is shaping up as a short one. Teams taking 3-1 leads in series have won 158 and lost only eight.

Andrea Bargnani scored 16 points for the Raptors, who led for all of 15 seconds in the two games at the Meadowlands. Toronto has lost eight straight road playoff games since beating Philadelphia on May 6, 2001, in Game 1 of Eastern Conference semifinals.

AP-ES-04-29-07 2211EDT