Basketball On The Internet.

THE Brooklyn Nets learned it the hard way and now Miami Heat - who should have known - found out right in their own backyard.

The Chicago Bulls have the heart of a champion and if you are not careful, it will beat all over you.

And that is regardless of who suits and who doesn't, as the Nets discovered to their chagrin.

It cost Nets coach P.J. Carlesimo his job - poor PJ. Many of us remember him coaching Andrew Gaze at Seton Hall into the NCAA Final in 1989, then getting choked out by Latrell Sprewell at Golden State some years later - and means for the next few weeks, Phil Jackson's name will regularly be bandied about.

Just watch as Jackson, the 11-time NBA championship coach of the Bulls and Lakers, is linked to Brooklyn, the LA Clippers and probably the Knicks too if Indiana knocks them out.

But I digress.

Considering it was the Bulls who ended Miami's 27-game winning streak during the season, they really should have been readier for what unfolded today.

This time Chicago ended the Heat's eight-game playoff winning streak 93-86 and at AmericanAirlines Arena in the opener of this best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi final series.

"They imposed their identity in this first game,'' Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "I don't think there's any doubt about it.''

No, there isn't, the Bulls turning back a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit with a 35-point avalanche, despite being minus Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich and, of course, Derrick Rose.

If Rose is going to play at all, this was the night he should have suited, when he was on a win-win situation. Now he should just declare he won't be suiting until 2013-14 and let his hardy herd of unbelievaBulls get on with it without distractions.

"We've been hit all year with a lot of different things,'' Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. "I like the mental toughness of our team.''

Diminutive guard Nate Robinson and forward Jimmy Butler silenced the Heat fans, stealing homecourt advantage in the process.

Miami now needs to win at least one of the three games at the United Center, the house MJ built.

"At the end of the day, we're up four, going into the fourth, in our building, and we give up a 35-point fourth quarter,'' Spoelstra said.

The Heat still led 86-83 but Chicago ran off the game's final 10 points.

Lesson learnt?