Wade, James power NBA's Heat over Knicks

NEW YORK, April 15 AFP – LeBron James scored 29 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while Dwyane Wade added 28 points to power the Miami Heat over the New York Knicks 93-85 on Sunday in a possible first-round NBA playoff preview.

Chris Bosh added 16 points and a game-high 14 rebounds while James and Wade each contributed six assists and Wade grabbed nine rebounds as Miami improved to 42-17, second-best in the Eastern Conference and fourth overall in the NBA.

“We don’t want to be playing our best right now. We want to continue to get better,” Wade said.

“We took a big step toward doing that tonight.”

Carmelo Anthony scored 42 points and pulled down nine rebounds for the Knicks, who saw their nine-game home win streak come to an end.

At 31-29, the Knicks are eighth in the East, a half-game behind Philadelphia and two games in front of Milwaukee for the final East playoff berth.

Iman Shumpert’s steal set up a Landry Fields layin that capped a 12-2 Knicks run and gave New York a 73-71 lead.

J.R. Smith slammed in a fast-break dunk to give the Knicks their largest lead at 79-75 only to have the Heat unleash an 18-3 run to seize an 93-82 lead. Wade scored 10 points for Miami in the decisive spurt.

“They turned up their defensive effort on us, caught us off guard, so we picked it up a little bit,” Wade said.

“We got the ball into the money guys’ hands and we took care of business.”

Anthony scored 14 points in the first quarter, a total of 22 in a first half where the Heat led by as much as 11 points but settled for a 46-44 advantage at halftime.

“Their bench came in and gave them a little roll in the second quarter,” James said. “We stuck with what we were doing.”

Publisher: AAPNewswire

16 Apr 9:24 AM