It had all the makings of a Bulls meltdown in the fourth quarter, but that wasn’t the case, as it was DeMar DeRozan and the Bulls that delivered the knockout punch.

Paul Beaty/AP

Patrick Beverley just wanted to see his new team pull out “a professional win.’’

That meant coming out with energy and the first punch against a playoff team like Miami, withstanding the counterpunch, and the delivering the knockout.

The Bulls guard and his teammates checked all those boxes.

Finally.

In a season of big leads turning into bad losses, maybe, just maybe, this group has it finally figured out.

“We haven’t had a lot of moments like that this year quite honestly,’’ coach Billy Donovan said of the 113-99 win over the Heat on Saturday. “You’ve got to lean into it. It was good for us against a team like that, that we could respond when they really got back into the game.

“This was a hard back-to-back, quick turnaround [from Friday double-overtime win over Minnesota]. Hopefully we can learn and grow from this and get better as a group.’’

Beverley was there to do everything possible to make sure of that.

“We came in understanding that was a must-need win,’’ Beverley said. “We didn’t want to come out in mud, we wanted to throw the first punch and we did. They responded like any good team would, and our first punch was real heavy. That led to a win.’’

The Bulls couldn’t have asked for a better first half.

If it actually was a boxing match it would have been stopped in the second round.

Not only did the home team dominate on the defensive end, holding …read more

Source:: Chicago Sun Times