Hollywood, FL 6/12/2011 6:25:48 AM
Nowitzki Calls Wade and LeBron's Actions "Childish"
Dallas Mavericks Stars Not Amused by Joke
Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki, whose team is leading the Miami Heat 3-2 in the 2011 NBA Finals, was not amused by a joke that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade of the Heat seemed to make about him.
On Thursday, Wade and James were caught on camera laughing and pretending to cough in apparent mockery of Nowitzki, who was sick during Game 4 of the series.
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"I just thought it was a little childish, a little ignorant," said Nowitzki, who had a sinus infection and a 101-degree fever during the game. "I've been in this league for 13 years. I've never faked an injury or illness."
But Wade said on Saturday that he didn't pretend to cough. He also said that he was just basically giving the media some bait to see if they'd take it.
"I actually did cough," said Wade. "And with the cameras being right there, we made a joke out of it because we knew you guys were going to blow it up. You did exactly what we knew.
"We never said Dirk's name. I think he's not the only one in the world who can get sick or have a cough. We just had fun with the cameras being right in our face about the blowup of the incident, and it held to be true. You blew it up."
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James didn't deny making fun of Dirk; rather, he just declined to make any comment on the matter.
"I'm not feeding into that," said James. "If you guys want to feed into everything that not only myself or D-Wade or the Miami Heat do, I think that's a non-issue. There's bigger issues in this series than that."
And despite having been annoyed by the joke, Dirk says that he is focusing on the next game, not the apparent joke.
"It's over to me," said Nowitzki. "It's not going to add anything extra to me. This is the NBA Finals. If you need extra motivation, you have a problem.
"So we're one win away from my dream, what I've worked for half of my life. This is all I'm really worried about. This is all I'm focusing on."
Game 6 will take place on Sunday night.
(Sources: ESPN.com)
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