Miami Heat centre Bam Adebayo, left, drives against Charlotte Hornets forward Moussa Diabate during Tuesday's NBA play-in tournament game in Charlotte.Nell Redmond/The Associated Press
In Miami, the NBA’s decision that LaMelo Ball grabbing Bam Adebayo was an ejection-worthy flagrant foul didn’t register much of a reaction. In Charlotte, the fact that the ruling didn’t include a suspension brought relief.
And Adebayo wants the league to look at how plays like that can be reviewed going forward.
Ball will play Friday for the Hornets in their play-in elimination game at Orlando – the reality that Charlotte coach Charles Lee hoped for, and something that Miami coach Erik Spoelstra didn’t seem to have a problem with.
“I didn’t think that he needed to be penalized more moving forward. I don’t think that would make sense,” Spoelstra said Thursday as the Heat held their season-ending meetings – two days after being eliminated from the postseason with a 127-126 loss in Charlotte, a game that Adebayo missed much of after being injured on a play where Ball grabbed at his ankle as he was falling.
“I don’t think he’s a dirty player. I just think, in that moment, all things can be true,” Spoelstra said. “It was a dirty play and a dangerous play. It should have been caught at that moment. But it wasn’t and then, you know, you move on.”
The league said Ball made “unnecessary and reckless contact” with Adebayo. Ball was fined US$35,000 for the foul, plus another US$25,000 for using profanity in a postgame on-court interview.
“Everybody’s going to have their opinion on it,” Adebayo said when asked his thoughts on the play. “Everybody’s going to try to defend him or defend me. ... We move on at this point.”
The flagrant foul from Tuesday’s game, if called as a Category 2 in real time, would have resulted in Miami being awarded two free throws and possession of the ball – plus would have led to Ball’s ejection.
An NBA investigation is standard after such plays. The league’s word came late Wednesday night, and only then could Lee exhale.
“I think the league handed out something that was what they deemed to be fair,” Lee said in Charlotte on Thursday before the team’s flight to Orlando.
Per NBA rules, the Heat could not challenge the ruling on the play because no foul was called. Adebayo was diagnosed with a lower-back contusion as a result of the fall, and he wondered why mechanisms exist to take three-point makes off the scoreboard after several more minutes of play – but incidents like the one Tuesday can’t be reviewed unless immediately whistled.