Dirk Nowitzki calls mocking incident ‘childish’

MIAMI—Dirk Nowitzki says it was “childish” and “ignorant” of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to mock the German’s illness prior to game five of the NBA Finals.

The two Miami Heat stars appeared to be faking a cough and covering their mouths in front of cameras that followed them as left the Dallas arena after the morning shoot-around on Thursday.

The Mavericks beat Miami 112-103 that night to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series, which continues on Sunday at Miami.

“I just thought it was a little childish, a little ignorant,” Nowitzki said after Saturday’s practice. “I’ve been in this league for 13 years. I’ve never faked an injury or an illness before.”

In Tuesday’s game four, Germany’s Nowitzki played through a fever of 38.5 Celsius (101F) and a sinus infection to score the game-winning layup with 14 seconds remaining as the Mavericks beat Miami 86-83 to level the series at 2-2.

Nowitzki was coughing during and after the game and at times pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth during the post-game news conference.

Asked during Saturday’s practice about their antics, Wade denied faking his cough and then blasted the media for reporting the mocking incident.

“First of all, it wasn’t fake coughing,” said Wade in a classic case of shooting the messenger. “I actually did cough. 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,” said Wade, who has been accused in the past of exaggerating his injuries.

James refused to comment on the incident Saturday, calling it a “non-issue”.

“I’m not feeding into that,” he 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. There’s bigger issues in this series than that.”

The video further damaged the image of the Heat, who many have criticized after Wade lured free agents James and Chris Bosh to Miami. That criticism will mostly fade if they win a title but the video is unlikely to win any new fans.

Nowitzki said the incident would not have any effect on his game because he doesn’t need any additional incentive to win try and win his first NBA championship.

“It happened. It’s over to me,” Nowtizki said. “It’s not going to add anything extra to me. This is the NBA Finals. If you need an extra motivation at this time of year then you have a problem.

“We’re one win away from my dream, what I’ve worked on for half of my life.”