Whiteside says current knee injury unrelated to Game 1 fall

After suffering a right knee sprain during the Miami Heat's Game 3 loss to the Toronto Raptors, Hassan Whiteside's status going forward remains up in the air.

Whiteside told reporters following Saturday's contest that the injury is unrelated to the sprain he sustained in Game 1 after crashing awkwardly to the ground. The Heat big man was seen leaving the locker room with a "giant soft cast", and will undergo an MRI on Sunday to determine the severity of the injury.

"It's the same knee," Whiteside told Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, "but it's two different things that happened. One I could play through. This one I couldn't."

Related: Wade, Whiteside receive treatment for knee injuries

"My knee went two different ways," Whiteside told reporters on Saturday. The big man considers his pain level to be "a seven out of 10."

After leaving Saturday's game, the Heat struggled mightily to establish any sort of scoring presence inside without Whiteside, as Josh McRoberts, Udonis Haslem, and Amar'e Stoudemire combined for just 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting. With perennial All-Star Chris Bosh already ruled out for the postseason, the Heat will have to rely on a trio of backup bigs should Whiteside miss any more time.

"We are without one of the best players to ever play the game in Chris Bosh and now we don't know about Hassan," Dwyane Wade told reporters following the game. "Whatever happens, guys just have to step up. Injuries are a part of the game, the worst part of it."