Dwyane Wade didn't approve of Hassan Whiteside's post-Game-5 comments, blaming his lack of minutes for his collective poor outings throughout the postseason.
The veteran shooting guard gave his best advice to the young big man after a 4-1 series loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, which culminated with a 104-91 loss on Tuesday.
“The thing is as players, you don’t want to give yourself an excuse,” Wade said, according to Tom D'Angelo of The Palm Beach Post. “You want to look and see where you can be better at. It’s easy to say that this series wasn’t a ‘big-man’ series. Or it’s easy to say that coach did this or that or I got in foul trouble.”
“Don’t give yourself an excuse. Just go into the summer and work on what you need to work on mentally and physically and get yourself ready for when this opportunity comes again. That shows your real character.”
A bold statement coming from Wade, a veteran that has still managed to have a huge veteran leadership role despite coming off the bench this season after being a starter from the start of his 15-year career.
Whiteside will reportedly talk to head coach Erik Spoelstra and president Pat Riley about his role with the team before departing to his native North Carolina for the offseason.
The 7-footer played only 10 minutes, benched after the third quarter after rookie Bam Adebayo and stretch-five Kelly Olynyk got the bulk of the minutes in Game 5.
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