LaMelo Ball on Tuesday was hero and villain as the Charlotte Hornets sent the Miami Heat tumbling out of the NBA play-in tournament with a thrilling 127-126 overtime victory, marred for some fans when Amazon Prime Video’s stream went offline.
Charlotte had never won a win-or-go-home post-season game in 12 previous attempts and looked in danger of extending that record after blowing a 125-120 lead with 26 seconds remaining to allow Miami to edge ahead 126-125.
After Miami star Tyler Herro sank a superb corner three-pointer to make it 125-123, Ball carelessly turned over possession and then gave away three free-throws with a rash lunge on Herro.
Photo: Getty Images via AFP
Herro drained all three shots to give Miami the lead with just nine seconds left.
However, Ball made amends with a determined driving layup to make it 127-126 before an athletic block from Miles Bridges snuffed out Miami’s last-gasp attempt to win it.
“We stuck with it and ground it out,” Ball said. “We wasn’t hitting our threes, all the shots weren’t hitting, but we stuck with it.”
Ball was at the center of controversy over an incident in the second quarter that led to Miami star Bam Adebayo hobbling out of the game.
After being blocked during a drive to the basket, Ball reached out and tripped Adebayo with a tug on his standing leg, sending the Miami star crashing to the hardwood. He played no further part in the game.
Miami coach Erik Spoelstra was furious that Ball escaped an ejection.
“The referees are there for what? How did they not see that? I don’t want this to be an excuse; Charlotte was incredible at the end,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t think that’s cute. I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s a stupid play. It’s a dangerous play. Our best player is out.”
Ball “should be penalized for that. I don’t think that belongs in the game, tripping guys, shenanigans. Someone has got to see that, and he should have been thrown out of the game for that,” he said.
The victory means Charlotte, beaten in their two previous appearances in the play-in tournament in 2021 and 2022, remain alive in the post-season while Miami are eliminated.
Charlotte are to face the losers of the Eastern Conference play-in game between the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic and seventh-seeded Philadelphia 76ers. The reward for the winner of that game tomorrow is a first-round playoff series against top seeds Detroit.
Off the court, fans, including a superstar player, voiced disbelief that the Prime stream went offline for nearly two minutes during the overtime period.
Stan Van Gundy, working the game as an analyst for Prime, was midsentence when the audio feed was lost coming out of a timeout with 48.1 seconds remaining. A message about “technical difficulties” began displaying on screens a few seconds later.
When the video and audio feeds resumed, Ball had scored for a 125-120 lead. Fans missed 22.1 seconds of playing time.
“Tell me the game didn’t just cut off?!!? Am I trippin?? WTH,” Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James wrote on X, as the words “technical difficulties” began trending nationally across social media.
A spokesperson for Prime, which has exclusive rights to all six games in this year’s play-in tournament, said the issue was caused by “a hardware failure in our production truck.”
In Tuesday’s Western Conference play-in game, a sensational 41-point display from Israeli forward Deni Avdija inspired the Portland Trail Blazers to a 114-110 upset of the seventh-seeded Phoenix Suns.
Phoenix looked to be heading into a first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs after moving into an eight-point lead with just more than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
However, a dazzling late burst of scoring from Portland, who went on a 17-5 run to close the game, means the Suns must play either the Golden State Warriors or Los Angeles Clippers in the final round of the play-in to advance to the playoffs.
Additional reporting by AP
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