Injury Bug Cooling Miami Heat

Filed under: Heat

MIAMI -- Maybe it was Dan Gilbert's angry letter putting a hex on the Miami Heat and LeBron after the Decision. Maybe it was LeBron James' fateful tweet about karma directed at Gilbert weeks ago. Or, maybe it's just the fact that the Heat are simply going through a rough patch where an assortment of players, including their top three stars, have suffered a rash of minor and not-so-minor setbacks over the course of a long NBA season.

Even LeBron, one of the more durable players in the league who only missed 16 games due to injury in his entire career prior to joining Miami, hasn't been able to dodge the bad luck that began in the preseason with Dwyane Wade injured minutes into their first game together and continuing throughout the regular season with the losses of Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem.

"The injury bug has struck our team," LeBron officially announced after their comeback win over the Detroit Pistons on Friday night. "I think everyone is playing with some injuries. You hate for it to happen. Everyone is trying to figure it out but at the same time, health is number one. We have to be healthy."

That meant Wade being a last-minute scratch from the game after putting on a shooting clinic in New York the night before. The results of a precautionary MRI on his wrist came back negative the next day but his status for Sunday's game on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder remains very much in the air, as is the status of Chris Bosh, though he surprisingly traveled with the team. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra didn't have much time to worry about his inactive players against the Pistons because his guys out on the floor were busy collecting injuries of their own.

 

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