LeBron James netted 23 points and Dwyane Wade added 21 on Sunday as the Miami Heat rolled past the Atlanta Hawks in a 107-87 victory.
Chris Bosh also put together an impressive performance on the night with 14 points and a season-high 16 boards to help Miami improve to a 21-7 record while the Atlanta Hawks, who are currently sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference’s Southeast Division, dropped to 18-10.
“You just have to give credit to the team effort on the defensive end,” Bosh said following his team’s victory. “Everybody did their job, put bodies on guys. We just went up in traffic, got it with two hands. Just fundamental basketball.”
As for Atlanta, who defeated Miami back on January 2nd (the Heat’s first loss of the 2012 season), the Hawks starters combined for just 40 points, as the reserves ended up with plenty of action.
Willie Green led the Hawks with 17 points off the bench, while newcomer Dampier got in six minutes of action and finished with four rebounds and no points. Aside from Green, Joe Johnson was the only Hawk to hit double figures in scoring, putting up 12 points – but grabbing zero rebounds.
“When things weren’t going very well, when we were missing shots and physically they got up in us,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said after the game. “They were clearly the aggressor and we did not respond. You could read our body language. When they made that run our body language was not very good. That is an area where we have to get better at. There is too much basketball to be played when they make a run.”
With their victory over the Hawks, the Miami Heat have now won 10 of their last twelve games and have a 3 game lead over Atlanta in the Southeast Division. They are four games ahead of the Orlando Magic (17-11).
Watch highlights of Sunday’s Heat vs Hawks matchup in the video below:
Tonight, the Miami Heat head to Milwaukee to take on the Bucks, who have surprisingly had their number on the year and won the first two matchups of the teams’ three-game season series.
