While the rest of the league was crawling to the regular season finish line, Miami was sideline sun-tanning and resting their stars on South Beach. On Wednesday night, Miami will likely close out the UnforgettaBulls season, but it may have come at a price.
Dwyane Wade's knees have been a consistent concern throughout the last two years, but in the second round against Chicago, Wade's right knee has robbed him of his athleticism and trademark ability to matriculate into the lane for baskets. As a result, he's averaging a career-low 12 points per game in the Bulls series.
According to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, Wade's been dealing with a left knee issue since last year's NBA Finals, but his right knee may keep him out of Game 5 and drastically limit his movement moving forward.
Wade has been dealing with an injury to his knee since March, five different times missing games because of it. He has twice taken two weeks off to rest it. It has not helped that he has repeatedly aggravated it, which isn't hard to do playing competitive basketball.
The Heat have called it a bruise and said MRIs have shown nothing is structurally wrong. Wade revealed at one point he actually has three bone bruises in the knee.
But when he went to the bench Monday night to get it looked at, he had to reveal an odd-looking bandage that was under a protective wrap on the knee that Heat athletic trainer Jay Sabol needed to fix.
"This was just the first time you've seen it, other times I've been able to not show you," Wade said after the game before revealing a rather gnarly detail about the bandage that certainly helps explain his troubles in the postseason.
"I'm taping it. When you have a [bone] bruise, you try to move the kneecap over so it won't rub. When you get into game sweat you have to re-tape it a bit."
