Wade happy with return to Miami
MIAMI — This said it all: Applause fell like confetti as
moved off the Heat bench. Noise built with each step he took to the scorer’s table. And by the time he was announced over the loud-speaker in the first quarter … “For the Heat …” ... everyone stood in American Airlines Arena and … “…No.3!…” … the roar spread like fire in a cauldron.
“… Dwyane …WA-AADE!”
The game hesitated momentarily. Heat players joined the applause. The crowd stayed on its feet, bringing thunder into the arena, everyone basking in the feeling of a headlined reunion.
It was then that Wade, in the center of love, looked up and gave the expression captured by the thousand camera clicks and live TV in the opening seconds of his first game back with the Heat.
No smile. No wave to the crowd. All game face.
“I’m home,’’ his face said, and there’s business to be done — fun business, as he’d alluded to earlier in the day. But he’d come back home to play, to win, and with 5:19 left in the first quarter in what turned out to be a 91-85 Miami victory, Wade entered the game with Milwaukee ahead 13-9.
In the first minute, Wade had a tip on defense, a rebound and a lob to
that resulted in a lay-in. Whiteside jogged back on defense with a lollipop smile on his face that was reflected across the arena.
Every play seemed larger than it mattered, every move more closely noted. A few minutes later when Wade hit a 3-point shot, the crowd was up and cheering again.
And so it started Friday night. Or re-started, really. Wade even sat at his old locker before Friday’s game, the one he had for 13 years before moving to Chicago a season ago. He then moved to Cleveland to start this season. But …
“I always felt Miami was where his heart and mind was,’’ was saying Friday in Cleveland.
The idea to bring him home formed a couple of weeks ago when Wade and Heat president hugged at the funeral of Wade’s long-time agent
It gained COMMENTARY traction with the dysfunction of Wade’s Cleveland team.
It came together Thursday hours before the NBA’s trade deadline. As Wade drove to work out in Cleveland with LeBron, a text came from Wade’s agent,
“Call me 911.” “I haven’t got a lot of ‘911 call me now’ on the trade deadline throughout my career,’’ Wade said. “So I knew it was something.”
Meanwhile, on the Heat’s side, coach
was told before Thursday’s practice that
a former Heat player, was returning. And something might happen “with Dwyane,’’ Riley said.
“I stopped as I was walking out the door and said, ‘What? Dwyane who?’ ” Spoelstra said.
The trade was made just before Wade was supposed to have lunch with LeBron. He went through it anyway, knowing per Heat protocol, “I’ve got to go do the bodyfat [measurement].”
He knows the drill. Riley made a couple of pointed references to Wade losing a few pounds. Is Wade hungrier to win, at 36, than he’s hungry to eat?
Pounds matter. So does age. If its impact isn’t always obvious on the court, it is off it. He wears prescription glasses now. Stylish glasses, for sure. But still.
“I’d been fighting it for a while,’’ he said.
Now it’s a new fight with familiar questions. Can he help this Heat season? Will he help them to the playoffs? Before all that, Wade had a question of his own about this first night.
“Is No. 3 available?” he asked a Heat official during his news conference, referring to his old jersey. The official nodded. “There you go.”
Fifteen minutes before tip-off, the Heat huddled up in what they call Championship Alley outside their locker room. This is where pictures of their three NBA titles line the walls.
There’s Wade celebrating with a trophy. There’s Wade with champagne. And now, last in line of players, there was Wade running on the court for the first time since the spring of 2016.
The first of a night of cheers welcomed him. There are comebacks in sports. From injury. From deficits. From troubled times. This was the rarest comeback of them all, though, the one where a sports region’s favorite returns to play.
“We want Wade!” the crowd chanted in the opening minutes when he sat on the bench.
They got him a few minutes later. This was one of those days in sports that made sense. Wade was back. The arena was alive. And that smile from Whiteside, that big smile after a pass from Wade, said everything this night.