Utah Jazz hit by a Heat wave

Jazz-Heat box score

SALT LAKE CITY — This time, there were no miracle shots.

Not enough Millsap mania. No magical Utah comeback — or at least one that stuck.

Nary a Miami meltdown, either.

Plenty of attitude, though.

"You could tell they had a chip on their shoulder coming into the game," said Jazz forward Paul Millsap, the hero of Utah's Round 1 win over the Heat a month ago. "They got up in us and played."

And won impressively, too.

Much-improved Miami avenged last month's embarrassing loss to the Jazz — a devastating defeat in which the Heat blew a 22-point lead and wasted a LeBron James triple-double — by running away with a 111-98 win Wednesday at EnergySolutions Arena.

"It was a complete team effort. Everybody from the starters to the bench," James said. "Everybody contributed to tonight's win. ... (And) when you go into a building like this, a hostile environment with a team that's very good, great in this building, it's always good to get a win like this."

Much to the chagrin of the Jazz and their fans, Miami did that with an ample supply of Dwyane Wade and an awful lot of James highlights as the aptly named Heat won their sixth straight.

But James' huge outing of 33 points, nine assists and seven rebounds and Wade's strong second half and 28-point night were to be expected.

What really hurt the Jazz, who fell for the second time in three games at home, was way too much Zydrunas Ilgauskas for Utah's liking.

And a lack of rebounding.

And a fourth-quarter flop by the home team.

And not enough energy or oomph left for one last riveting rally.

Big Z scored all 14 of his points in the second half, helping Miami build a 12-point lead early in the third quarter.

But Utah, as it so often does, fought back from that deficit and even took a 78-77 lead into the fourth quarter.

After that, however, the Jazz did what they've yet to do in 10 previous situations this season — lose a game after being up after three periods.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by James Jones and Wade seemed to re-ignite the Heat, who used a 12-2 run to go ahead 94-83 and seize control of the game midway through the final period.

"We folded a little bit," Millsap admitted.

That might have been evident by the Heat's 42-28 rebounding advantage, which included 15 offensive boards that resulted in 24 points.

It was also clear by how Miami outscored a normally strong-finishing Utah team 34-20 in the final 12 minutes.

Quite the stark difference from the 42-point fourth quarter the Jazz had in Miami last month in their crazy 116-114 overtime victory.

"They pushed us out on the floor and didn't give us the kind of shots that we like to get," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "When we executed and moved the ball fairly well we got decent shots, but the rest of the time we didn't have that."

Sloan also thought his team was a bit soft on James, who exploded for a season-high 22 points in the first half to set the tone for this game.

"He's a great player," Sloan said. "We were a little bit intimidated by him, the way he played. We were afraid to get up and get after him like they get up and get after us."