DALLAS — In the aftermath of Miami’s Game 5 loss to the Mavericks, video taken after that morning’s Miami shootaround has become a national story.
In the video, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are coughing and making joking remarks about being sick. Most who have seen the video construe it as Wade and James making fun of the fact that Dirk Nowitzki was painted as a hero for playing through a fever in Game 4.
“I just thought it was a little childish, a little ignorant,” Nowitzki said Saturday, before the Mavericks’ practice at AmericanAirlines Arena. “I’ve been in this league for 13 years. I’ve never faked an injury or an illness before. But it happened. It’s over to me.
“It’s not going to add anything extra to me. This is the NBA Finals. If you need extra motivation, you have a problem. So we’re one win away from my dream, what I’ve worked on for half of my life. This is really all I’m worried about.”
Earlier Saturday, Wade was asked how he would feel if Jason Terry or Nowitzki walked into AmericanAirlines Arena with an exaggerated limp — in other words, poking fun of Wade’s hip injury.
“First of all, it wasn’t fake-coughing,” Wade said. “I actually did cough. And with the cameras being right there, we made a joke out of it because we knew you guys were going to blow it up. You did exactly what we knew.
“We never said Dirk’s name. I think he’s not the only one in the world who can get sick or have a cough. We just had fun with the cameras being right in our face about the blow up of the incident, and it held to be true. You blew it up.”
James’ response? “I’m not feeding into that,” he said. “If you guys want to feed into everything that not only myself, or D-Wade or the Miami Heat do, I think that’s a non-issue. There are bigger issues in this series than that.”
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