NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: PISTONS v HEAT

June 6, 2005

Dwyane Wade

DWYANE WADE: You know, first of all, I just want to say thank you to the City of Miami for supporting us all season. And being great fans, we appreciate it. You know, the game, it was what this matchup should have been. It went seven games. It went down to the last couple seconds. They made plays at the end, you know, that we didn't make. That was the main thing. My injury, you know, anybody in my position would have done the same thing and came out and tried to gut it out and that's what I tried to do.

DWYANE WADE: I mean, tried to do whatever I can to be out there with a great group of guys. If I can keep guys' confidence, you know, even if I wasn't going to be playing at a high level, I just want to give guys confidence that I'm going to be there with them every step of the way, and I think I did it for the most part. Like I said, anybody would have done it, it was taking a shot or whatever it is, anybody in my position would have done it.

DWYANE WADE: Well, you know, we was down in the third and I felt it slipping away, so I thought I'd pick up my hands a little bit and do what I can do. My teammates knew I only had a certain amount of energy to put out for it and I did in the third. In the fourth, I didn't have to try to do that. We was up. Offense was going good, like I said. It just came down to the end and them making plays and we did.

DWYANE WADE: It did. It wasn't any indication or any reason why we lost. We had our whole starting five was injured, so, so what.

DWYANE WADE: Yeah, I couldn't be as athletic as I wanted to be. You can see I probably didn't have no rebounds tonight. I couldn't get down there too much. I did what I can do and like I said, the main thing I want to do tonight was to come out here and help get my guys' confidence, and whether that was scoring zero points or whatever I could do to help my team win, that's what I always try to do. Of course it didn't happen, but we've got a courageous bunch of guys in that locker room, you know, from Shaq to Wang Zhizhi, everybody was courageous in the locker room. We had a great season and we wanted to share this season with no other team and no other individuals than the team we had.

DWYANE WADE: I thought, I have room, I had a good shot and it just came up short. You know, I had that play in my mind I'm sure a million times, but you can't second guess yourself, never, as a player. Unfortunately it just came up short.

DWYANE WADE: You know, just feeling restricted, restricted to my right side when I couldn't move as much, couldn't battle. You know, this is Game 7 and you want to be at your best and you want to be able to battle and take hits and be able to give hits, and I really could not do that as much. Maybe that was the pained look on my face. I couldn't give my all-out effort that my teammates deserved and that Miami deserved, but I gave it as much as I could.