Dwyane Wade is playing like Flash again, and the oft-injured superstar knows exactly why, too – he’s finally feeling like his old self.
After leading the Miami Heat to a crucial 108-104 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night, the 12 year-veteran credited health for his stellar recent performance. Coach Erik Spoelstra has adjusted his team’s game-plan to account for Wade’s rejuvenation, too.
Via Michael Wallace of ESPN:
“This is the best I’ve felt in years right now,” Wade said Wednesday. “You question it. And you try not to question it, like ‘Why? Why couldn’t I feel like this the last two years?’ But it is what it is. I’m feeling like this now, when I need it individually to (carry) more of a load to help this team.”
[…]
“He understands the moment right now,” Spoelstra said of his expectations for Wade. “We don’t have to talk about it. It’s, ‘Here’s the ball. Make a play for the team.’ Quite frankly in the fourth quarter, the best offense really was to get the ball to Dwyane and let him create some kind of action.”
The 33 year-old has missed 18 games this season, and most recently sat out of the Heat’s March 6 loss to the Washington Wizards with a sore right hip. He’s averaged 29.8 points per game on 55.3 percent shooting in the interim, leading Miami to a 4-2 record as it fights for playoff livelihood.
Wade scored 15 points in the fourth quarter against Portland, subsisting on a steady diet of simple pick-and-rolls. When he wasn’t getting to the rim for typically acrobatic finishes, the three-time champion was draining off-dribble jumpers with ease. The latter development isn’t surprising – Wade is one of the game’s best mid-range shooters. It’s the added explosiveness and aggressiveness he showed on forays to the rim that’s especially encouraging for the Heat, and the main reason why Wade’s played like his younger self all month long.
If he can keep it up for the season’s remainder, it would be foolish to pick against Miami making the playoffs. Flash has been that good of late, and Goran Dragic increasingly comfortable, too.
At 31-36, the Heat are seventh-place in the East – one game up on the Boston Celtics and one and-a-half ahead of the Indiana Pacers. Related: the Cleveland Cavaliers seem most likely to get the conference’s two-seed.
While no one will pick Miami against LeBron James and company should the teams meet in the first-round, that matchup would certainly give Wade the chance to put his name back on the national radar. Here’s hoping not only that the Heat and Cavaliers face-off, but also that Wade is feeling good enough to play the way he has in the past two weeks come playoff time.
[ESPN] [Video via Free Dawkins]
