Bulls Beat Heat, Easily Handle LeBron James

The Chicago Bulls took care of the Miami Heat quite easily in Game 1 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals. They keyed in on LeBron James and Dwyane Wade from the start, their hard-nosed defense propelling Chicago to a 103-82 final score.

Yahoo! Sports reported that Derrick Rose led the way for the Bulls, scoring 28 points on just 10-of-22 shooting. It was one of his best shooting nights of the season, and it came on one of the biggest stages he has seen. Rose also had six assists in his 38 minutes of action, but should get a lot of the credit for wearing out Wade from the opening tip.

Forced to cover Rose on a number of offensive possessions, Wade managed just 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting for the game. Even worse, Miami was out-scored by 22 points when he was on the court Sunday.

Teammate LeBron James didn't fare any better, ending up with just 15 points on 5-of-15 shooting of his own. Going 12-of-32 between the pair is not going to mean many wins for Miami, and that will be key to them making a comeback in Game 2.

The one player the Bulls had no answer to was Chris Bosh, who had 30 points to lead all scorers in Game 1. He did it on just 12-of-18 shooting, raising the question of whether he should have had the ball even more when he was on the court. The problem, though, was that Miami began to settle for far too many jump shots; the Heat played right into the game plan that Chicago set up to win.

After the quick work Miami did beating the Boston Celtics, it had seemed like maybe the Heat was ready to finally play good basketball against the Bulls. Instead, Chicago won its fourth straight game against the No. 2 seed in the East, once again proving which team is the top dog at this time. The Bulls have every right to walk the walk after they basically blew out the Heat in the first game of this series.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Game 2 of the series will take place Wednesday in Chicago, and then the teams will head to Miami Sunday for Game 3. The breaks between games could drive fans bonkers, especially with the teams only getting through three games in the first eight days of the series. For two young teams trying to make it to the finals, it wouldn't seem like the breaks are necessary, but that's what the NBA gave everyone.