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If you shoot the king you better slay the king.
That is King as in James.
And of course you need to also make sure when you have Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh down, you need to keep them down. The Bulls learned that the hard way.
Seemingly cruising to a Game 5 win, the Bulls watched Bosh, James and Wade score the Heat's final 33 points and go on an 18-3 run to pull out an 83-80 win.

CHICAGO | You can't hate the Miami Heat. Sorry. I tried for most of this season. I really did.
I had pictured them as spoiled little rich kids, whining and spitting out their silver spoons whenever the limo driver hit a pot hole.
Can't do it any more. It's wrong.
This is not a bunch of pampered, egotistical, South Beach wannabes whose owner is trying to buy a title. Turns out, the Miami Heat roster is loaded with good guys like Mike Miller; talented players who care deeply for each other and the less fortunate.
Most have their own foundations set up. Many teams do, but Heat players were doing this long before it became fashionable.
Chris Bosh works with corporations that help middle schools in 13 cities across the country.
Mario Chalmers established "Mario's Closet" -- a specialty shop offering free and low-cost accessories for cancer patients.
Udonis Haslem provides school uniforms and school supplies to school-age children that are homeless, victims of domestic abuse, and in foster care.
Jamaal Magloire does extensive charity work for children's hospitals in Toronto. In the summer of 2010, he paid the funeral costs of murder victim Lucria Charles, a 28-year-old single mom he did not know, and set up a fund for her 7-year-old special needs son Mataeo.
Miller and wife Jennifer recently donated $1 million to an endowment fund for Sanford Children's Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D., his birthplace.
Chicago natives Dwyane Wade and Juwan Howard are known for their work with inner city children.
The Bulls said all season they're ready to "walk through the fire" together in times of adversity.
Well, the Heat didn't all meet on a blind date.

Dirk Nowitzki wrapped his hands around the silver ball trophy that goes to the Western Conference champions and smiled. After five years, he and the Dallas Mavericks are kings of their conference again, earning another trip to the NBA finals.
Yet Nowitzki didn't flash the wide, toothy grin of someone relieved to have accomplished his goal. Because, he hasn't.
Unless the Mavs win the next round, too, and become NBA champions for the first time, their whole glorious postseason — and that silver trophy — won't mean as much. It's a lament heard by many superstars, but Nowitzki's indifference amid much of the frenzied celebration around him showed just how serious he is about it.
"I was already thinking about the finals," he said. "This is nice for a day, but we set our goals in October to win it all. We haven't done it yet."
Dallas capped its climb back to the NBA finals with a 100-96 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night that ended the Western finals in five games.
The young, up-and-coming Thunder made things tough on the older, now-or-possibly-never Mavericks as they had throughout the series. And, as he has throughout the postseason, Nowitzki made the plays that mattered most. His latest highlights: swishing a 3-pointer with 1:14 left that put Dallas ahead and making a pair of free throws with 13.3 seconds left to seal it.
"It feels good to finally go back," Nowitzki said. "This time, hopefully we can finish the job."
The Mavs' only other trip to the finals was in 2006. They were up 2-0, with a big, late lead in Game 3, but wound up losing to the Miami Heat in six games. They'd won only a single playoff series since until a tremendous run this postseason — going 12-3, with wins in 10 of the last 11 games, including a sweep of the two-time reigning champion Lakers.

Miami, FL, United States (AHN Sports) – LeBron James won the battle of MVPs, and as a result the Miami Heat are just one step away from the NBA Finals.
James had 35 points, six rebounds and six assists and shut down Rose defensively down the stretch as the Heat outlasted the worn-out Bulls, 101-93 in overtime Tuesday night in Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
Rose finished with 23 points but shot just 8 of 26, including 1 of 9 from the arc and committed seven turnovers. The league MVP scored 10 fourth-quarter points in the first three games and had just six in this one on 1-of-7 shooting.
Chris Bosh scored 10 of his points 22 points after the third quarter, including the first four points of the extra session for the Raptors, who will travel for Game 5 Thursday in Chicago.
Dwyane Wade was scoreless in the third and fourth quarters, but had six points and three blocks in the extra session. He finished with 14 points on 5-of-16 shooting.
Chicago was within 91-89 with 1:49 left in the OT when James barreled past Luol Deng down the left side of the lane for a left-handed layup with 1:36 to play. His pull-up jumper with a defender wrapped all around him with 29 seconds left made it 97-91 and sent the Bulls to their first three-game losing streak of the season.

At least now The Series has a theme: hatred.
For this, we can all thank Dwyane Wade, who is not so much a basketball player as an Artist of Conflict, a fellow who can win wars and all the little battles in between, without much concern for the rules of engagement.
In this case, the Miami superhero managed to nearly eliminate one rival with an interesting maneuver — perhaps not dirty, but not entirely in accord with the prescribed rules of sportsmanship — and it resulted in a dislocated elbow for Rajon Rondo and a cause celebre for a Celtics team that used it as a knockout punch.
Maybe you didn’t think the Celtics had a game in them like the 97-81 body slam they applied to Miami on Saturday night at a delirious TD Garden — it wasn’t something you could have gleaned from their performances in Game 1 and 2 in Florida.
But this was the old Boston. Kevin Garnett had a party in the paint, with 28 points and 18 rebounds. Paul Pierce started strong and finished even stronger. Shaquille O’Neal was no more than just a jiggly novelty act, but inspiring nonetheless. And the defense held the Heat’s Big Three to 15-for-41 shooting, and the entire Miami team to seven assists in the entire second half.

Finally, Kevin Durant got the ball in crunch time for the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Denver Nuggets. The result? Pure, unadulterated basketball nirvana. Durant scored 14 points in the final three and a half minutes and 41 for the game as the Thunder rallied from a nine-point deficit to beat the Nuggets and end that series in five games.
In a way, it's a sign that Durant needs to make all the late-game decisions every single game for the Thunder. Those who scoffed at Russell Westbrook's rogue act in Game 4 undoubtedly have more ammunition to bash the Thunder point guard now. See! Look what happens when Durant gets the ball!
That's too easy for me, though. Honestly, I think Durant showed growth as a crunch-time performer on Wednesday. Part of the problem with Durant late in games is that he's become a little passive this season. Last year, when the starpower of Westbrook wasn't quite where it was now, Durant took it upon himself to demand the ball. This year, though, that hasn't happened. Durant has been stymied by aggressive, physical defense, and he's given up the ball too often at the slightest hint of pressure.
Wednesday night's performance was a true joy, then, because we didn't see any of those negative characteristics. Sure, Durant shot all jumpers, and eventually, he'll need to be better at getting to the rim. But every shot he hit was as a result of a forceful decision. He didn't wait for the Nuggets to set up their defense on him; he attacked them before they could. When he does that, he's unstoppable, given his size and shooting ability. When he doesn't? He makes himself mortal.
Going forward, Durant will need that switch to be on permanently when his team needs it to be. No more deferring to Westbrook. It's time for the Durantula to strike.

The Orlando Magic's playoff shooting struggles continued as they fell into a 3-to-1 series hole against the Atlanta Hawks.

The Magic were just 2-for-23 from three-point range in Sunday's Game 4. According to Elias, the 8.7 percent made from three-point range was the worst in a playoff game in NBA history, minimum 20 attempts. For the series, Orlando is shooting just 21.9 percent from deep. The Magic shot 36.6 percent during the regular season.

While this would be crushing to any team, it's even more so to the Magic who relied on the three-point shot more than any team in the NBA this season. During the 2010-11 campaign Orlando scored 28.4 percent of its points off three point field goals and averaged over nine made three's per game.

In its four games against the Hawks the Magic are averaging just over five three-point field goals per contest. That's not going to get it done. Orlando's perimeter game in general struggled Sunday as the Hawks outscored the Magic 48-to-16 on field goal's from 15-plus feet from the basket. Atlanta shot 46.7 percent from that range while Orlando struggled.

The main culprits for the Magic were Hedo Turkoglu and Jameer Nelson who combined to go 1-for-14 from beyond that distance.
Yet in crunch time the Magic still went to Turkoglu who missed a potential game-tying three as time expired. He finished 2-for-12 from the field, including 0-for-6 from three.

While the rest of his teammates struggled, Dwight Howard continued his strong play on the inside. He finished with 29 points and 17 rebounds doing most of his damage on post-up plays.

He has averaged 20.7 points per game on post-up plays in the playoffs, and in Game 4 video footage showed he scored 20 of his 29 points on such plays. 17 of those points came in the second-half.

However this series has proved it takes more than one player to win in the postseason. Orlando may have found a potential supporting cast member for Howard in Gilbert Arenas who came off the bench to score 20 points in Game 4.

Entering Sunday, Arenas hadn’t contributed much against Atlanta in the first round playoff series. However, he sparked Orlando in Game 4 as a pick-and-roll ball handler, scoring 13 of his 20 points in that fashion.

Still while Arenas was good off the bench, Hawks' reserve Jamal Crawford continued to be even better as he led Atlanta with 25 points.

Crawford is just the third player in the last 20 seasons to score 20 points off the bench in four consecutive playoff games in a single postseason.

He joined Nick Van Exel for the Mavericks in 2003 and Kevin McHale of the Celtics in 1991 as the only players to do so. Neither of those players was able to do it in five straight.

Crawford is now averaging 24.0 points per game this postseason, the highest average for any bench player in a single postseason over the last 15 seasons.