Dwyane Wade tried to put the latest Miami Heat controversy behind him on Tuesday, saying he apologized to LA Lakers guard Kobe Bryant for the hard foul in Sunday's NBA All-Star Game that left Bryant with a bloodied, broken nose.
Actually, Wade apologized twice. Once during the game, when he saw Bryant's face had been bloodied. He also sent Bryant an apologetic message after Sunday's game.
"I sent him a message, with my apologies. Unfortunate that happened to him, but that's all I could do," Wade said Tuesday. "He knows it's no ill intent on me to do that."
"It's unfortunate, obviously," he added. "I don't want to ever hurt anybody in this game, especially on a freak play like that. It's unfortunate. I send my apologies. But it's not intentional. If it's something I did intentionally, it'd be a different story."
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Wade did say he meant to foul Bryant, wanting to stop the clock so he could complain to a referee about a few uncalled fouls committed against him.
During the game broadcast, TNT analyst Reggie Miller chastised Wade for making such a hard foul in an exhibition. Wade's teammate, LeBron James, disputed that assertion Tuesday. "D-Wade didn't, at all, go for a hard foul," James said. "He went to wrap his arms up and accidentally hit him in the nose."
Wade seemed tired of the entire discussion. "When I saw the blood in his nose, I was like, 'Obviously, I wasn’t trying to do that, man,'" he said. "I don't know if anybody wants me to get down on my knees in front of the world and do it."
He was not the only member of the Heat fed up with the controversy. "It's an All-Star game. I mean, come on," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said about the foul and LeBron James' turnover in the final seconds that sealed a Western Conference win.
"I send my apologies to Kobe and I move on from it," Wade concluded. The Heat are set to face the Lakers on Sunday in Los Angeles. We will find out then if Bryant has moved on from it as well.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
