{"id":712688,"date":"2026-04-17T20:27:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712688\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:27:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:27:22","slug":"lamelo-ball-confirms-he-tried-to-apologize-to-bam-adebayo-for-tripping-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712688\/","title":{"rendered":"LaMelo Ball confirms he \u2018tried to apologize\u2019 to Bam Adebayo for tripping incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

LaMelo Ball was asked to address his incident in which he was retroactively fined and issued a flagrant-2 foul<\/a> for tripping Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo early in the Hornets\u2019 127-126 overtime Play-In Tournament win on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Ball said<\/a> that he waited outside the visitors\u2019 locker room for Adebayo to apologize for the incident. However, Adebayo was in the shower, and Ball understood that the Heat center might not want to talk to anyone after his team was eliminated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to apologize and everything,\u201d Ball told reporters before Friday\u2019s Play-In game against the Orlando Magic. \u201cTo look out for Bam, mainly to make sure he\u2019s ok. We don\u2019t want nobody hurt in this league ever. As long as he\u2019s good, that helps my mind a little.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ball swiped at Adebayo\u2019s foot as he was falling, causing him to fall on his back and leave the game injured. No foul was called on the play at the time, flagrant or otherwise, and no in-game review was possible because play continued after the possession.<\/p>\n

After the loss, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said that Ball should have been ejected<\/a>. Ball made the game-winning layup to end Miami\u2019s season and send Charlotte to Friday\u2019s Play-In elimination game against the Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Adebayo said<\/a> he had yet to receive an apology from Ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Adebayo said about talking with Ball after Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cBy that time, I was in the shower trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Obviously, everything happened all at once, and I wanted to be out there. At some point, I\u2019ll see him again, and we\u2019ll have that conversation, and we\u2019ll move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spoelstra told reporters Thursday that he \u201cdidn\u2019t think that (Ball) needed to be penalized more moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Ball was asked about fans who suggested he committed dirty play and what that might say about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s all basketball,\u201d Ball said. \u201cI feel like Bam knows we never had nothing going on. I never really had anything with anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LaMelo Ball was asked to address his incident in which he was retroactively fined and issued a flagrant-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,473,144,295,189,3881,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-712688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charlotte-hornets","10":"tag-heat","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miamiheat","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116421934644574329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}