MIAMI (AP) -- Pat Riley called this one perfectly.
Asked 90 minutes before the game about Dwyane Wade's season-long struggles against the Chicago Bulls, Riley expressed nothing but confidence in the Miami Heat's superstar guard.
"Great players will find a way to get around any defense when you raise the stakes," Riley said. "And Dwyane is a big-game guy."
Sure enough, Riles was right.
Wade scored 30 points, 14 in the fourth quarter -- including six straight to lead Miami back from its only deficit of the night -- and the Heat beat the Bulls 111-106 in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference series on Saturday night.
"That's what he does," Heat center Shaquille O'Neal said. "The fourth quarter is his."
Echoed Wade: "Like Shaq and I always say, the fourth quarter is my time."
Wade added 11 assists for Miami before hobbling into the locker room with 8.6 seconds left, succumbing to a severe cramp in his calf. O'Neal added 27 points and 16 rebounds for the Heat, who can now enjoy a lead and a good omen -- no O'Neal team has ever lost a playoff series when taking a 1-0 lead.
Game 2 is Monday in Miami.
"We didn't play as smart as we needed to in some instances," Bulls coach Scott Skiles said. "But we put it all out there. ... We took it down to the end. We had our opportunities. We just weren't able to make the big plays when it was necessary to make them."
Ben Gordon scored 35 points and Andres Nocioni had an 18-point, 15-rebound effort for Chicago, which connected on 13 tries from 3-point range. Kirk Hinrich scored 19 points and had eight assists for the Bulls, who entered the game as the NBA's hottest team, winning 10 of their last 11 in the regular season.
"No moral victories at this point in the season," Gordon said. "We've just got to figure out how to slow them down. I thought in the first half they had way too many fast-break points and in the key moments of the game we had some turnovers that really hurt us."
By the time he left, Wade -- who averaged 12.3 points and shot 24.3 percent in three regular-season meetings with Chicago -- had done plenty to doom the Bulls' chances of stealing the opener.
The Bulls never led until the fourth quarter, using a 12-0 run to turn an 87-79 deficit into a 91-87 lead. Gordon had 10 of those 12 points, including a pair of free throws that ended the run with 8:22 remaining.
Wade, who was 4-for-15 at that point, provided Miami's answer.
He scored the game's next six points, capping his personal burst with a jumper over Chris Duhon for a 93-91 edge with 7:06 left. O'Neal added a dunk 35 seconds later for a four-point lead and the Heat never trailed again.
"Too much Dwyane Wade and Shaq in the end," Duhon said.
Wade said he didn't believe the cramping issue would keep him out of Game 2.
"I'll be all right," Wade said. "I'll get a lot of liquids and Gatorade in me tonight, and I'll be good for Monday."
Wade had two huge rebounds in the final minute, first an offensive one that allowed Miami to run 20 critical seconds off the clock, then a defensive board off Nocioni's missed 3-pointer with 16 seconds left. He was fouled and hit both free throws to give the Heat a five-point lead with 14 seconds remaining.
"We feel like we should have stolen that game," Hinrich said. "We were right there."
The win added to an emotional time for Riley, whose 96-year-old mother Mary died on Friday. Riley's eyes reddened as he discussed his mother's death before the game, although he insisted that his personal turmoil will not distract him during the playoffs.
"My mother always used to say, and she told me time and again this week, 'Life goes on, so get on with it,"' Riley said. "She couldn't stop saying that to her children. That's who she was. And we're getting on with it."
There were some fireworks in the first half, when Heat forward Udonis Haslem wound up on the floor after battling three Bulls for a rebound and voiced his displeasure in a less-than-ideal manner -- he threw his mouthpiece in the direction of referee Joey Crawford, who immediately signaled his ejection.
"I threw my mouthpiece at the ground," said an apologetic Haslem afterward. "Looking at it on TV, I could see how Joey would think I was throwing it at him."
It wasn't clear if the mouthpiece actually hit Crawford, who began angrily shouting and pointing at someone sitting with the Heat radio crew at the scorers' table about 1 1/2 minutes later.
But Crawford wasn't the only person in the arena left fired up by the Haslem incident.
After Haslem left, Miami scored the next seven points to start a half-ending 22-11 run for a 63-51 lead at intermission. Wade had seven points in the period-ending spurt, but Gordon had 11 in the third quarter as the Bulls got within five entering the final period.
"We've got to expect a war," Heat guard Gary Payton sa