Trainer Tim Grover says Wade's recovery program 'is set up for him to excel in the playoffs'

As far as NBA trainers go, few have been trusted by as many prominent players as Tim Grover.

Grover has worked with the likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant throughout his career, and these days it's his work with Dwyane Wade that's attracting a significant amount of attention.

Wade, who has sat out a number of games this season to ensure his knees are good to go come playoff time, worked with Grover in the summer of 2008 when he was recovering from OssaTron treatment on his left knee. The pair also worked together during the Miami Heat's title run last season, where Wade was clearly playing through a significant amount of pain.

These days, Wade and Grover (along with the Heat's medical and training staffs) are continuing to work together, and the focus is now on getting the Marquette product back to an "elite level."

"I consider it a Tour de France," Grover told Bleacher Report. "You got your stages that extremely high, very tough, and you've got your lows. So I kind of adjust it accordingly. So you look at your schedule and you know that these games or this stretch is more important than this thing here, so we want him at a certain level here, we want him at a certain pace here, we know there's going to be a little downtime."

While Heat fans have been concerned about whether or not Wade features in both legs of back-to-backs, Grover claims that there's too much focus on playing consecutive days.

"It really doesn't matter to me, because the whole way the program is set up is for him to excel in the playoffs," Grover said. "I knew, at some point, he'd be able to do that. And it's a good mark to see, OK, he's making progress. But that really wasn't something that was extremely important to me."

Tip-off times are actually more of an issue to Grover than playing back-to-backs, particularly as teams aren't forced to play consecutive days in the playoffs.

"I think the hardest adjustment for him now is not even back-to-backs, it's going to be adjusting to the different times the games are at," Grover continued. "The thing that I was most pleased about than anything else, was his performance in the Chicago game (on March 9), which was played at noon. The way he came out in that first quarter. That to me was more important, because that dictates more of what the playoff schedule is going to be like. You have a break between the games, but if you have a weekend game, you might be in at 3:30. To me, if I had to look at something, that was more important than the back-to-back."

Wade dropped 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting against the Houston Rockets on Sunday in a game that started at 3:00 p.m. It looks like the program is working.