Dwyane Wade Won't Answer Question on Possible Retirement, Final Game in Miami

Dwyane Wade abstained from answering if he believed the Miami Heat's Game 4 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers would be his final game in Miami.

"I don't want to answer that right now," he said after pausing and smiling following the question, per Tom D'Angelo of the Palm Beach Post. "I've got another game to play. I'm focused on the next game."

Wade, 36, is in his 15th NBA season, leading to speculation that he could retire after these playoffs. But Wade has said previously he won't consider his options until after the season.

"Just taking time to think, that's all I'm doing," he said last week, per Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. "Taking time to think and looking at every angle and what's the best situation for me to be in. That's all. It's a lot of different, it's a lot of different things that come into play."

Wade has said if he does return for a 16th season, it will be with the Heat.

"Someone like Vince [Carter] can go anywhere and play. Every year, he can go to do a different location," Wade noted. "I can't hop to here and there. So it makes it a little tougher."

Wade has certainly been valuable off the bench for the Heat in Miami's series against Philadelphia. In Game 2's 113-103 win, he was vintage Wade, scoring 28 points off the bench. In Game 4, he kept things close in the fourth quarter, scoring 12 points in the final frame and 25 overall, though it wasn't enough to keep the Heat from falling into a 3-1 deficit.

"I definitely was trying to lead my team," Wade said, per D'Angelo. "Coach put the ball in my hand and I was trying to lead us to try to steal one, in a sense, once they took the lead, we were trying to steal one here back at home, so we could go back 2-2."

It wasn't to be, however, and Miami's season will hang in the balance on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.

"We're going to get back to finding out what it is to try to get better, to get to that point," Wade said. "Like I told them, 'We have nothing to lose, man... Our only goal, our only thing we have to do is put everything we have on the line.' We’re trying to make a series out of this so let's go in and just play free but play hard, play the Miami Heat way, live with the results from there."