Robinson leads the Bulls to 93-86 win in Game 1 in Miami.
Chicago Bulls guard Nate Robinson scored a game-high 27 points to lead the Chicago Bulls to a 93-86 win over the Miami Heat at the AA Arena on Monday night.
The Bulls take a 1-0 series lead in their Eastern Conference semi-finals clash with the defending champions, and they were able to do so after successfully limiting LeBron James.
Equally important, they had key contributions across the starting line-up with Jimmy Butler adding 21 points and Joakim Noah posting up 13 points and 11 rebounds.
Robinson received stitches for a cut to his lip during the game, but brushed off the collision with James and praised his team-mates for doing a great job in their match-ups and collectively to secure a valuable road win.
James had 24 points on 8-of-17 shooting, while Chicago were also able to keep Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh under close watch as they limited Miami to 39 percent shooting from the field.
Impressively, the win came in the absence of starters Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng, with Thibodeau revealing prior to the game that both are improving but are day-to-day as to when they will return.
“I thought the rebounding was good overall. We know how good they are and this is just one game and we’re going to have to play a lot better,” Thibodeau told the media in his post-game interview.
On Robinson, Thibodeau praised his guard stating that “he is as confident as they come” and a key to his success is that he “always thinks he’s hot”.
He will have been buoyed by the showing his team produced on Monday night to take a series lead, but knows that it will undoubtedly get more intense and difficult for his men in Game 2 at the AA Arena on Wednesday night.
Miami will be determined to improve and level the series, but as has been the case all season, Chicago continue to provide them with plenty of headaches.
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