Just days after complaining about a lingering knee injury, Hassan Whiteside has been shut down by the Miami Heat for at least two weeks.

Following the team's loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night, the center admitted that the issue - which has already kept him out for a period this season - was "bothering" him.

He has been diagnosed with a left knee bone bruise and the Heat confirmed on Thursday that he will require 1-2 weeks of rehab.

The injury initially occurred in Miami's season opener against the Orlando Magic which forced the big man to miss five games.

Once the game in Cleveland had concluded, the 28-year-old expressed concern with the severity of the problem.

"It's really bothering me, man," he said, according to Ira Winderman of the Sun-Sentinel. "We're going to figure it out. We're going to figure it out when we get back to Miami and figure out what's wrong."

"It has really been bothering me throughout the season. It had been bothering me since Orlando."

The Flordia-based outfit went 2-3 during that stretch without Whiteside and will certainly miss his production in the coming games.

The seven-footer is averaging a double-double of 14.9 points and 12.7 rebounds on 58.1 percent shooting through 15 appearances for the 10-11 Heat.

The All-Defensive star's playing time has also taken a dip this year, down from 32.6 minutes a season ago to just 26.8 which can definitely be attributed to his nagging knee.

"It's the same thing he's been dealing with the last three weeks," head coach Erik Spoelstra said, according to Winderman. "Since he's been back, the days in between have been recovery days."

Despite the concerns of Whiteside, Spoelstra and the team's medical staff simply believe the slow recovery process is due to not getting enough rest with games coming thick and fast during the grueling schedule.

"This is part of the process," he said. "We anticipated this. It hasn't gotten any worse, necessarily, just the schedule hasn't let up and he really hasn't been able to do two days of work in a row for a while."

It's a big blow for the South Beach franchise to lose its best player for a number of weeks but they'll have to rally and look for others to step up in his absence.

They return home to face Southeast Division rivals the Charlotte Hornets in the Sunshine State on Friday night.