Miami Heat’s Chris Bosh is surrounded by Chicago Bulls’ Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, Kyle Korver, Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah during the second half of Game 1 of their NBA Eastern Conference Finals playoff basketball game in Chicago, on Sunday. (Reuters
AFP/Los Angeles

Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls drew first blood in their NBA semi-final series by routing the Miami Heat 103-82 behind Rose’s 28 points on Sunday.
Luol Deng added 21 points and the Bulls shut down the Heat’s star cast of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to take a 1-0 lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference final.
“We got a little bit of a cushion,” said Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau. “Then our defence picked up.”
James was held to just 15 points and Wade finished with 18. Chris Bosh led the Heat with 30 points.
“Dwyane and LeBron are going to create a lot of attention,” Bosh said. “This is a good defensive team. They’re going to make them distributors. We have to look at where we fell short as a team for Game one and come back with a better approach.”
Chicago pulled away in the second half, going on a 10-0 run in the third and outscoring the Heat 46-24 over the final 19 minutes.
The Heat will have a chance to try and level the series in game two on Wednesday in Chicago.
Chicago fans chanted “over-rated” and “beat the Heat” in the final minutes referring to Miami’s big scoring trio James, Bosh and Wade. “He missed shots. He had an off night,” Deng said of guarding James.
Deng held James to just five-of-15 shooting. Deng also had four three pointers, four steals and grabbed seven rebounds.
“You play defence. You play defence hard and the shot goes up and they get an offensive rebound, kick it out for a three or get a layup or a dunk,” James said. “Those are demoralizing for a defensive team. We’ve got to figure out a way to clean that up.”
Elsewhere, NBA season scoring champion Kevin Durant poured in 39 points and grabbed nine rebounds to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder past Memphis 105-90 and into the Western Conference playoff final.
The Thunder defeated the Grizzlies four games to three in the best-of-seven second round series and advanced into the league semi-finals against the Dallas Mavericks, who will host game one on Tuesday.
“I was so upset with myself for letting my guys down by not playing my game (game six),” said Durant who had just 11 points in a Friday loss. “I wasn’t aggressive at all.
“But I stayed with it. I was just positive and confident and kept the faith in the things that got me here.”
Russell Westbrook added 14 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds for Oklahoma City, which has the youngest team in the playoffs with an average age of 25.4 years per player. It was the first playoff triple-double for Westbrook.