{"id":607645,"date":"2026-04-15T03:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607645\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T03:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:45:08","slug":"nba-play-in-heat-upset-lamelo-ball-wasnt-ejected-for-tripping-bam-adebayo-on-dangerous-play-that-knocked-miami-center-out-of-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607645\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA play-in: Heat upset LaMelo Ball wasn&#8217;t ejected for tripping Bam Adebayo on &#8216;dangerous&#8217; play that knocked Miami center out of game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Miami Heat took an early blow in Tuesday\u2019s play-in loss to the Charlotte Hornets when Bam Adebayo left the game with a back injury early in the second quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Adebayo grabbed a rebound after a LaMelo Ball layup was blocked. As Adebayo landed near the baseline, Ball, on the ground, grabbed the back of Adebayo\u2019s left ankle while Adebayo\u2019s right leg was in the air.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Adebayo fell hard to the court and was in immediate pain.<\/p>\n<p>Adebayo needed help up from the court and eventually walked to the locker room. The <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MiamiHEAT\/status\/2044210667180216358\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Heat listed him as questionable to return;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Heat listed him as questionable to return&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">Heat listed him as questionable to return<\/a> with a lower back injury before ruling him out late in the third quarter. The Heat <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/breaking-news\/article\/nba-play-in-coby-white-3-late-lamelo-ball-layup-propel-hornets-in-ot-thriller-past-heat-022651832.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:went on to lose 127-126 in overtime;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;2&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;went on to lose 127-126 in overtime&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" target=\"_blank\">went on to lose 127-126 in overtime<\/a> with Ball scoring the winning basket with 4.7 seconds left.<\/p>\n<p>No foul on LaMelo, no review of play<\/p>\n<p>Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was heated on the Miami bench after Adebayo\u2019s fall. Officials didn\u2019t call a foul on Ball, and Spoelstra\u2019s pleas to review the play for a potential flagrant foul went unheeded.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Referee Zach Zarba told the Amazon Prime broadcast the play wasn\u2019t eligible to be reviewed because it wasn\u2019t immediately stopped and there was a change of possession.<\/p>\n<p>Spoelstra was still upset after the game and said Ball should have been ejected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s cute,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cI don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s funny. I think it&#8217;s a stupid play. It&#8217;s a dangerous play. He should be penalized for that. \u2026I don&#8217;t think that belongs in the game, tripping guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spoelstra thought the officiating crew should have seen the foul and not put on the onus on the game being stopped for a review.<\/p>\n<p>Official &#8220;Curtis [Blair] was there,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cIt&#8217;s his responsibility to see that. And if it&#8217;s not his responsibility, then Zach [Zarba]&#8217;s got to see it. Somebody&#8217;s got to see that. He should have been thrown out of the game for that. There&#8217;s no place in the game for that. But that did not deter us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Hornets led 30-26 at the time of Adebayo\u2019s injury early in the second quarter. The Heat maintained their composure and went into halftime with a 54-52 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Adebayo remained out of the game for the start of the third quarter, but the Heat had not yet ruled him out. Jaime Jaquez Jr. got the second-half start in his place, and Miami eventually ruled him out in the final minutes of the third.<\/p>\n<p>A three-time All-Star and a force on both sides of the court, Adebayo was the best big in the game and gave Miami an edge inside when he was on the court. They were at a significant disadvantage without him.<\/p>\n<p>Adebayo posted six points and three rebounds in 11 minutes before leaving the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Heat took an early blow in Tuesday\u2019s play-in loss to the Charlotte Hornets when Bam Adebayo&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,16111,726,5670,57554,171517,12998,7223,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-607645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bam-adebayo","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-charlotte-hornets","13":"tag-erik-spoelstra","14":"tag-jaime-jaquez-jr","15":"tag-lamelo-ball","16":"tag-miami-heat","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}