Bosh ties season-high with 30, helps push Heat past Pelicans in OT
The opening game in the NBA’s 2015 Christmas Day quintuple-header wasn’t the prettiest present under the tree, but Chris Bosh gave the Miami Heat just enough firepower to unwrap a victory.
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Bosh tied a season-high with 30 points to go with 10 rebounds, four assists and one steal to lead the Heat to a 94-88 overtime victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday, outdueling fellow All-Star big man Anthony Davis to help push his team to its fifth win in seven games, improving to 17-11 on the season.
The two teams alternated periods of abject offensive stagnation, with New Orleans scoring 15 and 14 points in the first and third quarters, respectively, and Miami scuffling to just 15 in the second and fourth. But with Bosh holding up his end and Dwyane Wade chipping in 19 points (albeit on 7-for-20 shooting) with six rebounds, four assists and a steal, the Heat were able to hold off a late Pelicans surge to win their seventh straight Christmas Day game. Miami now boasts a league-best 10-2 all-time record on Christmas, and Wade now stands as the third-leading Christmas Day scorer in NBA history, passing the great Oscar Robertson and trailing only Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.
Bosh struggled from long distance, missing six of his eight 3-point attempts, but he did plenty of damage in the pick-and-pop game, shooting 6-for-11 on midrange jumpers and feasting on the open looks he was getting due to Davis’ tendency to move away from Bosh to help on Miami’s drivers. Bosh made a point of taking Davis to task for leaving him alone during the game:
Afterward, Bosh told ESPN’s Israel Gutierrez that he relished the challenge of locking horns with Davis under the bright lights of the NBA’s Christmas Day stage, the kind of showcase moment he once feared he might never again see after being diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs this past February.
“The past couple of weeks, my teammates have really given me urgency, and especially just coming out and playing Anthony Davis, I haven’t had this opportunity in a very long time, so I need this right now,” Bosh said.
Davis did his level best to lead the struggling Pelicans, matching Bosh blow-for-blow by scoring 29 points with 15 rebounds, four assists, four steals and three blocks in his Christmas debut.
He scored New Orleans’ first seven points, had 20 points and 10 boards by halftime, and was just about the only reason his island-of-misfit-toys club didn’t get run off the floor before intermission.
“He’s the best,” Bosh said. “It’s given me inspiration to really work on my game, put those extra hours in the gym and really just step up in big moments. I felt that today was a huge game for us to get back on track, and there’s nothing better than playing on Christmas, so I’m glad to come up big.”
Bosh scored 14 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, helping the Heat snatch victory from the jaws of defeat after a mid-fourth collapse. With Ryan Anderson getting hot and the Miami offense devolving into a string of going-nowhere isos, the previously punchless Pelicans rip off a 14-2 run to erase what had been a 13-point deficit, knotting the game at 70 with five minutes remaining. (It’s worth noting that, while shot-blocking center Hassan Whiteside didn’t play after the 4:42 mark of the fourth, he was manning the middle for most of that Pelicans run; he finished with eight points, 17 rebounds and four blocks in 24 1/2 minutes of play.)
Both teams had chances to win in the closing minute of regulation, but Bosh missed a 10-footer with 14 seconds remaining and the Pelicans, well, kind of collapsed on their ensuing possession. Head coach Alvin Gentry called a timeout to draw up a potential game-winner, only to see guard Tyreke Evans — who had been struggling through a nightmarish outing, going 1-for-8 from the floor with four turnovers to that point — start the play on the wrong side of the floor, scuttling the action before it got started and prompting Gentry to call another timeout:
Take two resulted in a contested jumper that Davis missed, sending the game to an extra session that Miami controlled. Bosh and Wade combined to go a perfect 7-for-7 at the line, and sealed the deal when Wade found a cutting Bosh for an and-one layup that gave the Heat a 90-82 lead with 40 seconds left.
That hook-up put a somewhat merciful end to a game that saw both teams shoot just 40 percent from the floor, saw the Pelicans somehow manage to score just two points off 18 Miami turnovers, and made an ignominious bit of history as the lowest-scoring game ever to go to overtime on Christmas.
But a win’s a win, and after dropping two of their first three games on this homestand, the Heat will surely be content to smile and graciously accept the gift they were given.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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