Miami’s Wade Misses Practice Due to Migraine at LinesMaker

Miami’s Wade Misses Practice Due to Migraine

MIAMI – One of Dwyane Wade’s biggest rivals is back, at the worst pos­si­ble time for the Miami Heat.

Wade did not prac­tice Sun­day because of symp­toms of a migraine, a prob­lem that has plagued him for years and kept him out of a game ear­lier this sea­son. His sta­tus for Game 2 of Miami’s East­ern Con­fer­ence first-round series against the Philadel­phia 76ers on Mon­day is unclear, prompt­ing at least some mild con­cern for the Heat.

“He’ll be here,” pre­dicted Heat for­ward LeBron James.

Heat coach Erik Spoel­stra didn’t go out on that limb, say­ing that it’s “too soon” to know if the 2006 NBA finals MVP will be avail­able when Miami gath­ers for prac­tice Mon­day morn­ing to com­plete prepa­ra­tions for Game 2.

Wade told the team that he felt a headache com­ing on Sat­ur­day after­noon before Miami’s 97–89 vic­tory, play­ing 35 min­utes with­out any obvi­ous dis­com­fort. Wade scored 17 points in that game, five of them in the final 1:34 as the Heat held off a huge come­back attempt by the 76ers.

“We’ll have to see how he feels at the end of the day,” Spoel­stra said. “We really wanted to be proac­tive right now and keep him rested and take med­i­cine and we’ll go from there.”

So while there was some worry at Miami’s prac­tice, the 76ers seemed totally loose at the end of their ses­sion. A few play­ers shot free throws in flip-flops after the work­out, oth­ers tried 20-footers with their non-shooting hand.

If the 76ers are ner­vous about the prospects of get­ting into a two-game hole – the Philadel­phia fran­chise has lost all 16 series in which it’s faced an 0–2 deficit – it didn’t show.

“The younger guys, they’re not get­ting frus­trated. They don’t even get it. They’re happy to be here, out here play­ing,” said 76ers for­ward Elton Brand. “The older guys, we’re say­ing we need to attack the rim. We need to put the onus on the refs to call it.”

Much as it was Sat­ur­day, foul shoot­ing remained key in Philadelphia’s thoughts on Sunday.

Here’s the good news for the 76ers: They’ve held the Heat under 50 per­cent shoot­ing all four times they’ve played this sea­son. Here’s the bad news: They’ve lost all those games.

It’s not the shots the 76ers are defend­ing that are decid­ing their games against Miami. It’s the ones they can’t con­test – the ones from the foul line – that are mak­ing the dif­fer­ence. Miami holds a 127–61 lead in free throws taken in its series with Philadel­phia this sea­son, includ­ing a 39–15 edge in Game 1.

“You’ve got to put that ball on the deck and drive in there and you’ve got to get some con­tact,” Philadel­phia coach Doug Collins said. “So we’re going to keep try­ing to do that. That’s obvi­ously an area we’d like to be bet­ter. But we scored 42 points in the paint yes­ter­day, so it wasn’t like we were launch­ing jumpers.”

Fouls – for and against – have been a season-long issue for the Six­ers. They were 26th in the 30-team NBA in free throws taken this sea­son, while Miami ranked third in that depart­ment. And while the 76ers had three play­ers get called for fouls more than 200 times dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, Wade was Miami’s leader with 197.

“They have ath­letes that attack that goal,” Brand said. “We don’t attack as much as those guys going to dunk the ball at the rim. So there’s going to be a dis­par­ity. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, they cause havoc, and (Chris) Bosh under­neath, stuff like that. They’re going to get more fouls than us. We just have to be more aggressive.”

If Wade can­not go on Mon­day, the Six­ers obvi­ously catch a huge break. And if Wade does play, he may have to wear gog­gles again to pro­tect his eyes from bright lights – one major migraine trigger.

Wade wore gog­gles with an orange tint when Miami faced the New York Knicks on Jan. 27, around the time of his last known fight with migraines. He made 13 straight shots from the field dur­ing one stretch of that game, fin­ish­ing with 34 points in a 93–88 loss.

The Heat have clear­ance from the NBA if Wade has to wear the gog­gles Monday.

Even with Wade in the lineup, Philadel­phia held all three of Miami’s stars to under 50 per­cent shoot­ing Sat­ur­day, with James going 4 for 14 and Bosh 8 for 17. James and Bosh did com­bine for 25 rebounds and a 22-for-25 show­ing at the foul line.

James acknowl­edged that if he has to do more Mon­day, that’s fine.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to the chal­lenge,” James said.

Related Posts:

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• Sus­pended Lions’ Suh Eli­gi­ble to Return to Prac­tice Dec. 12
• Prac­tice Two – Hamil­ton Pips Vet­tel at Interlagos
• Bur­ress Returns to Prac­tice After Sit­ting Out With Back Issue
• Manning’s Abil­ity to Prac­tice Cru­cial to Colts’ Evaluation

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