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James leads Heat past Bucks

Feb 14, 2012 - 4:05 AM Milwaukee, WI (Sports Network) - LeBron James scored 35 points and the Miami Heat snapped a three-game losing streak to the Milwaukee Bucks with a 114-96 win on Monday night.

The Heat, in the midst of a three-games-in-three-days stretch, avoided falling to the Bucks for the third time in less than a month. They snapped a losing streak to the Central Division team that dated back to April of last year.

James scored 16 of his 35 points in the third quarter, punctuating the effort by racing past three defenders for a thunderous one-handed dunk that put the NBA's second-leading scorer over 30 points for the first time in five games.

The Heat moved to 6-1 since their most recent loss to the Bucks on February 1 and are 2-0 on their tough back-to-back-to-back stretch of three road games in three nights. They are 3-1 overall on a season-long six-game road trip.

"We took last night like it was its own game and we did the same thing tonight," said James. "Now we move on to Indiana to close it out."

Carlos Delfino had 24 points to lead the Bucks, who are 2-5 since their last win over Miami. They trailed by as many as 24 points and fell to 0-2 on a three-game homestand.

The Heat were able to rest their three stars for most of the fourth quarter one night after James and Dwyane Wade sat out the entire fourth in a 20-point rout of Atlanta and Chris Bosh rested for most of it.

Wade scored 20 of his 22 points, and Bosh had six of his eight, in the first three quarters as Miami held a commanding 90-74 lead going into the fourth.

James' dunk, which came after he slipped past one defender at the point and split two more in the paint, gave Miami its 16-point lead with 4.2 seconds left in the frame.

The Heat shot nearly 52 percent from the field and made half of their 14 three-point attempts, leading Bucks head coach Scott Skiles to lament his team's porous defense.

But there were some shots the Bucks couldn't do anything about, like a couple of fadeaway jumpers James knocked down in front of their bench that Skiles thought looked particularly difficult.

"Maybe they're easy for him," the coach qualified.

The rout wasn't on until James went off in the third quarter. Milwaukee led 30-27 after the first and trailed just 55-50 at halftime. But the Heat shot 65 percent in the third quarter, starting it with a 19-6 run led by James.

"We hung in there the first quarter and did some nice things," said Skiles. "We're an average defensive team, and we can't afford to be."

Game Notes

Mario Chalmers had 13 points for Miami, while Drew Gooden and Brandon Jennings scored 12 apiece for Milwaukee. Jennings scored just four points over the last three quarters...The Heat play the Pacers on Tuesday...Milwaukee's three-game homestand ends against New Orleans on Wednesday. It started with a loss to Orlando on Saturday.