Heat center Bam Adebayo left the game with a lower back injury<\/a> early in the second quarter.<\/p>\nAdebayo grabbed a rebound off a layup attempt by Ball that 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
Adebayo fell hard to the court and was in immediate pain.<\/p>\n
Adebayo left the game with a lower back injury and did not return, leaving the Heat without arguably their best player and the strongest post player in the game.<\/p>\n
Officials didn\u2019t call a foul on Ball, and Spoelstra\u2019s pleas to review the play for a potential flagrant foul went unheeded. 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
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Erik Spoelstra: Ball \u2018should have been thrown out\u2019<\/p>\n
After the game Spoelstra told reporters he believes Ball should have been ejected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that belongs on the game, tripping guys and shenanigans,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u2026 \u201cSomebody has got to see that. He should have been thrown out of the game for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ball wasn\u2019t thrown out. And he hit the game-winning shot as Adebayo was off the court.<\/p>\n
While Ball and Knueppel went cold, Brandon Miller (23 points, 5 of 10 from 3) and Miles Bridges (28 points, 9 rebounds, 5 of 10 from 3) helped keep Charlotte afloat alongside White.<\/p>\n
Davion Mitchell led Miami with 28 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds. Andrew Wiggins added 27 points and 7 rebounds while shooting 4 of 8 from 3.<\/p>\n
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Kel’el Ware took over in the post for Adebayo with 12 points, 19 rebounds and 5 blocks. But it wasn\u2019t enough for the Heat to overcome the Hornets\u2019 heroics and the loss of Adebayo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Charlotte\u2019s sharpshooting duo of LaMelo Ball and Kon Knueppel went cold, Coby White did not. The trade-deadline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[155899,20446,64,63,16111,12997,73337,2066,8643,57552,81480,5662,12998,7223,207815,590,85,295646,43114],"class_list":{"0":"post-607758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-andrew-wiggins","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-bam-adebayo","13":"tag-brandon-miller","14":"tag-charlotte","15":"tag-chicago-bulls","16":"tag-coby-white","17":"tag-davion-mitchell","18":"tag-hornets","19":"tag-kon-knueppel","20":"tag-lamelo-ball","21":"tag-miami-heat","22":"tag-miles-bridges","23":"tag-nba","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-the-hornets","26":"tag-tyler-herro"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607758","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=607758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}