For all the times they have challenged each other during an increasingly intense rivalry, the Bulls and Miami challenged themselves Saturday night.
Fresh off a dismal loss in New York to the Knicks, Shaquille O’Neal called Miami’s season “embarrassing” and Dwyane Wade demanded his teammates “have some pride.”
For two days, the Bulls had spouted the importance of building off an impressive victory over Dallas.
That backdrop served merely to intensify the Bulls’ 100-97 victory over Miami, which was marred because Ben Wallace was carried off the court by Malik Allen and Michael Sweetney with 5 minutes 1 second remaining.
The Bulls said Wallace suffered a sprained left knee and will have more tests Sunday.
The injury occurred when Kirk Hinrich drove the lane against Udonis Haslem and Haslem’s head snapped back into Wallace’s knee. Wallace gingerly took two steps and then collapsed, clutching the knee and remaining on the ground for several minutes.
Ben Gordon’s 34 points led the Bulls, who never trailed in beating the Heat for the fourth straight time but almost coughed up a 17-point lead. Hinrich added 26 points.
Miami, playing without O’Neal, was led by Wade’s 24 points, which came on 8 of 24 shooting.
Gordon’s jumper with 1:58 remaining snapped an 89-89 tie.
After a James Posey miss, P.J. Brown, who had subbed for Wallace, drained two free throws with 1:34 left.
Jason Kapono hit a jumper for Miami, but Hinrich countered with a turnaround jumper in the lane. Hinrich then tacked on two free throws to seal the victory.
The teams were playing for the first time since Posey drew a one-game suspension for a flagrant foul on Luol Deng on Dec. 27 at the United Center. The United Center sellout crowd of 22,951 booed Posey when he entered late in the first quarter and just about every time he touched the ball.
But the extracurricular physical play was limited to Alonzo Mourning and Wallace drawing a double technical foul midway through the first quarter on incidental contact after the whistle and then some jawing.
Similar to the philosophy they followed in the season-opening blowout in Miami, the Bulls looked to attack by aggressively pushing the ball upcourt at every opportunity.
When Miami pulled to within 67-59 midway through the third quarter, the Bulls responded with points off three straight fast-break chances. Gordon hit Deng for an alley-oop dunk, Deng made two free throws after being fouled as he attacked the rim and Nocioni made a short jumper off a feed from Gordon.
The Bulls dominated early, leading by as many as 16 in the first period thanks to a 14-2 run in which Hinrich scored seven points and held Wade scoreless. In fact, Wade missed his first five shots and didn’t score until 4:04 remained in the first half.
In general, Hinrich has had regular-season success in making Wade work for his points.
“He has had a lot of help,” Skiles said. “Dwyane is a great player. One-on-one, Kirk has been very disciplined about not going for his shot fakes.”
Hinrich and Gordon scored 22 of the Bulls’ 27 first-quarter points as Wallace had three blocks and gathered seven rebounds.
Early in the second quarter things turned into the Andres Nocioni show. The active Argentinean scored 12 points in the period, including eight straight.
But Wade’s jumper awakened him. And Miami closed the first half with a 13-4 run, with Wade scoring five, to pull within 54-46.
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kcjohnson@tribune.com
