Before shootaround Thursday morning prior to Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Dallas, James and Wade appeared to be mocking Nowitzki about his sickness by coughing and joking with each other on camera. Nowitzki played Game 4 with a 101 degree fever and was still not 100 percent for Game 5, and he told ESPN.com that he was not a fan of the jokes.
"I just thought it was a little childish, a little ignorant," Nowitzki said Saturday. "I've been in this league for 13 years. I've never faked an injury or illness."
Wade, who, like James, never mentioned Nowitzki's name while they were apparently mocking him, said that it was not supposed to be a joke and it is being overblown.
"I actually did cough," Wade said. "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."
James said he would not discuss the incident, saying that "there's bigger issues in this series than that."
"I'm not feeding into that," James said. "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."
Game 5 is Sunday night in Miami at 8:00 p.m.
