{"id":712888,"date":"2026-04-18T02:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T02:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712888\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T02:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T02:51:14","slug":"lamelo-ball-isnt-dwelling-on-bam-adebayo-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712888\/","title":{"rendered":"LaMelo Ball isn’t dwelling on Bam Adebayo incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

LaMelo Ball is moving on from trip gate. <\/p>\n

Ball \u2014 in the middle of a resurgent season for the 44-win Hornets \u2014 was at the center of a controversy on Tuesday, when he tripped up the Heat captain Bam Adebayo<\/a>, who took a hard fall on his back in the second quarter and missed the rest of the game.<\/p>\n

The do-or-die affair ended in overtime, with Charlotte winning 127-126.<\/p>\n

Ball, on Friday before a play-in game against the Magic, said there are no hard feelings stemming from the play, where he appeared to grab Adebayo\u2019s leg, either attempting to break his own fall or \u2014 as some suspected on social media \u2014 deliberately attempting to drop the all-world defender.<\/p>\n

\"LaMeloLaMelo Ball talks to the media after the game against the Miami Heat during the 2026 SoFi Play-In Tournament on April 14, 2026 at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of worried about this game today,\u201d Ball said after the Hornets\u2019 morning shootaround on Friday.<\/p>\n

Ball, who was not called for a foul on the play, was fined $60,000 following the incident, $35,000 for the foul \u2014 which was then retroactively upgraded to a flagrant 2 \u2014 and $25,000 for cursing in a postgame interview live on Prime Video.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut like I said, I try to apologize and everything,\u201d Ball continued. \u201cJust look out for Bam. Mainly just make sure he\u2019s OK. We don\u2019t want nobody hurt in this league ever. So as long as he\u2019s good, it\u2019s helped [ease] my mind a little.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adebayo told reporters earlier this week that he and Ball hadn\u2019t spoken about the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Adebayo said regarding a possible conversation with Ball postgame. \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

Notably, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was heated<\/a> in his postgame presser after the ordeal.<\/p>\n

\"BamBam Adebayo reacts after a fall in the first half against the Charlotte Hornets during their game at Spectrum Center on April 14, 2026 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s cute. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s funny. I think it\u2019s a stupid play. It\u2019s a dangerous play,\u201d Spoelstra said Tuesday after the game. \u201cI don\u2019t think that belongs in the game. Tripping guys, those shenanigans. He should have been thrown out of the game for that. \u2026 There\u2019s just no place in the game for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ball added that the conversation will happen at some point. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I see him, [I will] try to talk to him,\u201d Ball said. \u201cAfter the game, I tried to talk to him. I was waiting by his locker room and just talking to the security guard, waiting for him. But he said he was in the shower, and it\u2019s a tough game. I mean, you lose, you don\u2019t really like talking to people. So I just gave him his space pretty much and he said he\u2019d get with me. There was a lot going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hornets and Magic are suiting up to determine the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference and who will face the No. 1 seed Pistons in a first-round series beginning on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LaMelo Ball is moving on from trip gate. Ball \u2014 in the middle of a resurgent season for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[1179,7,473,144,966,295,189,3881,6,11,56381,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-712888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-bam-adebayo","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-heat","12":"tag-lamelo-ball","13":"tag-miami","14":"tag-miami-heat","15":"tag-miamiheat","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nba-playoffs","18":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116423447692097068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712888","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=712888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}