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No Dwayne Wade, no problem for the Miami Heat.
With Wade sitting out the front-end of a back-to-back two-game swing, the Heat defeated the Atlanta Hawks 104-88 and were led by Chris Bosh who scored 19 points. Bosh did his damage early, as did the rest of the starters as the bench saw plenty of action in the second half. The Heat travel to Orlando to face the Magic on Wednesday night.
"I was working on being aggressive early tonight," Bosh said after the game. "I wanted to focus on the easy baskets. We wanted the second unit to get good minutes tonight because we are going to need all of our energy tomorrow night."
Ray Allen led the bench with 17 points. Mario Chalmers was third in scoring with 14 points. LeBron James scored a season low 13 points for Heat, who improved to 8-3 on the season. Atlanta falls to 6-5.
"That group has a lot of pride,'" Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. "Norris (Cole) did a great job finding Ray (Allen). It was good to see."
The victory was Miami's eighth straight over Atlanta and their fourth in a row on the young season.
Miami had 13 steals while Atlanta had a season-high 24 turnovers. Rashard Lewis led the Heat with five steals off the bench. The turnovers led Miami to over 50 percent shooting for the tenth time in 11 games. The Heat shot 51 percent for the game and had 48 points in the paint. Miami also scored more than 100 points for the tenth time in 11 games.
"We just want to come in and do our jobs," Bosh said. "When we do that, we can turn it over to the bench and let them do their job."
Miami coach Erik Spoelstra was pleased with the effort that he got from his team.
"They are a good basketball team and that was a good win. It was very encouraging," Spoelstra said. "I wanted to get into the rotation tonight. If we get to our identity, we like our chances."
Spoelstra was quick to praise Chalmers and the way he helped move the offense. This was Chalmers first game back from his one-game suspension that he served against Charlotte.
"When we are at our best we have some great barometers for our offense. It means that we are playing the way we want to play," Spoelstra said. "Mario played aggressive and played well. He had a lot of energy. It was good to have him back."
Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said he liked what he saw out of the Miami team that won for the seventh time in its last eight games.
"Give Miami a lot of credit," Budenholzer said. " They shot the ball real well from the three-point line and they are a very good team."
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