ORLANDO — LaMelo Ball said he is relieved to see that Bam Adebayo was not more seriously injured after the Hornets point guard tripped the Heat center and knocked Adebayo out with a lower back injury early in the second quarter during Tuesday’s Hornets’ overtime Play-In win over Miami.
The NBA investigated the play and ruled it a flagrant 2 foul while also fining the Hornets star $35,000 for the foul, plus another $25,000 for using profanity in a postgame on-court interview. Ball was not suspended for Friday’s Play-In game between the Orlando Magic and the Hornets to determine the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
“I’m kind of worried about this game today,” Ball said after the Hornets’ morning shootaround in Orlando. “But like I said, I try to apologize and everything. Just look out for Bam. Mainly just make sure he’s OK. We don’t want nobody hurt in this league ever. So as long as he’s good, it’s helped [ease] my mind a little.”
Ball swiped at Adebayo’s foot as the Heat center was trying to stay in bound following a rebound, sending him crashing to the floor and remaining down through two ensuing scores. Adebayo exited with 10:58 left in the second quarter and did not return in Tuesday’s 127-126 overtime loss for Miami.
Ball said following that Hornets’ win that he would seek out Adebayo and apologize to him. But Adebayo said on Thursday that he had yet to talk to Ball.
“Whenever I see him, [I will] try to talk to him,” Ball said. “After the game, I tried to talk to him. I was waiting by his his locker room and just talking to the security guard waiting for him. But he said he was in the shower and it’s a tough game. I mean, you lose, you don’t really like talking to people. So I just gave him his space pretty much and he said he’d get with me. There was a lot going on.”
After that tripping play, video surfaced from a previous Heat-Hornets game in January of 2024 when Ball grabbed at Adebayo’s leg while he was sitting on the floor and Adebayo was running past him up court.
Ball said he had no ill intention and that there’s no history of anything between him and the Heat center.
“It’s all basketball,” Ball said. “I feel like Bam knows. We never had nothing going on, you know what I’m saying? I never had really [anything with] anybody. Go out there and play basketball. Even [on] the one before, I [saw] him, try to foul him, stuff like that.”
Following the overtime Play-In game, Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra said there was no place in the game for a play like that which he felt was dangerous and dirty. But Spoelstra said on Thursday that he didn’t think Ball needed to be penalized any further following the NBA’s ruling.
“I don’t think he’s a dirty player. I just think, in that moment, all things can be true,” Spoelstra told reporters in Miami. “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.”
Had the flagrant foul from Tuesday’s game been called in real time as a Category 2, Miami would’ve received two free throws and possession of the ball and the flagrant two would have led to Ball’s ejection.
Ball was focused on the Magic on Friday and trying to snap a nine-year playoff drought, the longest in the NBA, for the Hornets.
“My head stayed clear,” Ball said when asked how he has put the Adebayo tripping incident behind him. “So it’s never a problem.”
