Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl
Dwyane Wade is back with the Miami Heat.
The team says Wade has recovered from his sprained right ankle and will play Friday night (8 ET, ESPN) against the New York Knicks, who will be without All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony.
Anthony is being shut down for a few days because of wrist, thumb and ankle injuries. Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni also says point guard Baron Davis is still not ready for his season debut. Davis has been battling back problems.
“He just can’t perform the way he (needs to),” D’Antoni said. “The medical staff decided it best to take the weekend off.”
Wade missed Miami’s past six games with a sprained ankle and sat out nine overall this season. The Heat are 5-1 the past two weeks without Wade and are 8-1 without him on the season.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Wade has been able to do a number of on-court workouts in recent days, including one Friday morning.
While Wade is not on a minute restriction, he may not play his regular minute load for a few games.
“He had a lot of nagging injuries and the sum of all of them was holding him down,” Spoelstra said. “I’ll keep a close eye on him. Ideally he won’t play past exhaustion.”
Wade went through shootaround Friday and originally was listed as a game-time decision. Afterwards Spoelstra and LeBron James both said Wade was “very close.”
D’Antoni said that not only will Anthony miss Saturday night’s game in Houston, his return against the Pistons on Tuesday also is not guaranteed.
Anthony has struggled with the injuries, shooting just 30 percent in the past five games. In Charlotte on Tuesday, he had the lowest-scoring game of his career, when he finished with 1 point. The next day, in Cleveland, he scored 15 points on just 5-of-14 shooting.
“He can’t make a shot and he’s playing through a lot of pain,” D’Antoni said. “It’s not going away and it just kept getting worse … We got to have him 100 percent. If not, it’s crazy to keep going.”
Anthony said trying to play through the injuries wasn’t just leading to poor results, but it also was affecting him mentally.
“I think I was trying to be a superhero, trying to prove to my teammates that I can play hurt, trying to hide it,” Anthony said. “But at the end of the day, me doing that wasn’t doing anything but hurting the team. I just wasn’t myself physically and it was taking a toll on me mentally.”
WRITTEN BY Information from ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst, ESPNNewYork.com’s Jared Zwerling and The Associated Press was used in this report & FULL STORY HERE
