Now that the Miami Heat’s streak is over, they can focus on getting healthy and defending their NBA title. After the loss to the Chicago Bulls, the Heat have been sitting members of their “Big 3,” trying to get them back to full strength for the playoffs.
LeBron James had a hamstring injury that kept him out of three games, but he has bounced back just fine and scored 27 points in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers.
Chris Bosh sat out that game against Philly with a sore knee and it looks like he’s being cautious and may take some more time off to recover.
Dwyane Wade on the other hand, seems to be dealing with some more serious problems. Wade has missed the last four games for the Heat and six of the last eight with knee and ankle injuries. He has been dealing with soreness and swelling of the knee, which has been re-aggravated twice since he injured it last month.
Miami clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference a while ago, and they have a virtual lock on the number one overall seed, so at this point they really just have to focus on getting back to 100 percent, and not rushing anybody back just to close out the regular season.
The most important thing is to be healthy," Wade said. "So when I feel it, then I'll get back on the court. Obviously, I want to play. But I have to make sure that I'm right. You have to get healthy."
With just six regular season games remaining, Wade said he would like to see the floor before the playoffs to get back in rhythm. My guess is that the Heat will be extra cautious since Wade is no stranger to knee problems and losing him for a chunk of the postseason would make things a lot harder on the team.
Since the Heat’s opening round playoff series will be against a team most likely below .500, I’m sure they’d have no problem with Wade using that as a warm-up to get back into shape.
