Dwyane Wade To Miss First Game Of Season With Hamstring Injury
By Wes Goldberg
After a strong start, Dwyane Wade will miss his first game of the season when he sits out Friday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks with a hamstring injury he sustained in the Miami Heat’s loss to the Indiana Pacers Wednesday night.
Via Ira Winderman for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
"“For me, obviously I want to play as many games as possible,” he said Friday. “As I said before, you can’t control certain things. I’ve had worse. I’ll be back out there soon enough. Just when I come back, I want to be able to play the way I was playing the way before, and not hampered like I was the other night.”“I sprinted to get the layup and just strained my hamstring,” he said. “Obviously, I could play through stuff, so I played through it, finished the game, obviously. But, yeah, second play of the game.”"
Head coach Erik Spoelstra downplayed the injury.
"“It’s just the season,” he said. “He’s been working a lot. So, it’s nothing major right now. We just want to be smart about it. It’s more of an accumulation. Early in the season, we have to be smart about all this.”"
Wade missed 28 games last season mostly as a part of his maintenance program. Nine of those misses were because of his hamstring. He isn’t part of a maintenance program this season, and has played in three back-to-backs already.
"“I got to be smart. And then we’ve got two games coming up this weekend, so I’m able to reevaluate,” he said, with a back-to-back up next starting Sunday against the visiting Milwaukee Bucks and then Monday against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center. “Right now, it’s simply just day to day. I’m going to do what’s best for the team. I thought the other night was best for me to keep playing through it and give ourselves a chance to win. It’s just not smart for me to try to push it.”"
As long as it’s not the knee, we can breath. A hamstring is a common sports injury, and Wade being careful is probably more related to his age than it is his knee issues, though I’m sure it has a bit to do with both. I wouldn’t worry too much about this, Heat fans. It’s not the glass knee, though it doesn’t sound like Wade is going to rush to get back.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Heat play without Wade’s scoring and facilitating, or if the Heat can even out do the offensive output of Wednesday’s loss.