Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo tried to have a conversation Friday with an official after a home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. It apparently didn’t go well.
A day after the Heat’s 106-104 loss, the NBA announced it was fining Adebayo $50,000 for making inappropriate contact with and directing profane language at a game official following the end of the fourth quarter.
No video of the confrontation in question is available, but you can see an unhappy Adebayo walk toward what is likely an official at the end of this highlight reel. Adebayo took the final shot of the game, missing a would-be game-winning 3-pointer. The Heat bench believed he was fouled by Julius Randle on the play.
The NBA begged to differ about the ending, saying in its Last Two Minute Report that it was a correct no-call because Randle’s contact was “marginal” and Adebayo’s lower body drifted toward the Timberwolves forward to initiate the contact.
Adebayo discussed the incident with reporters at length after the game.
“It wasn’t even about the last play. It was throughout the whole game. I don’t really get too confrontational, I don’t really get into it with the refs because it’s their job, but it’s our job to let them know, like … Dudes fighting for everything on the line, so it’s like have the decency to look me in my eyes when I’m having a conversation. Obviously we lost, I don’t understand why they think we can’t be emotional. We’re going to be emotional. Win or lose games, if we have a conversation and it gets heated, it’s not because I just want to go at you. It’s because s***’s happening in the game. Like I said, have the decency to look a man in his eye and not walk away. That to me is utterly disrespectful in a man’s game.
“I had the decency enough to wait until late after the game to have my conversation … That’s what you’re supposed to do as a man. Face to face, but when you walking away and stuff like that, it’s truly disrespectful and I feel like stuff should happen when they do that because when we get emotional, we walk away, we get tech’d up and we get fined, and I think that’s crazy.”
If the NBA is to be believed, Adebayo did a little more than try to get the official to make eye contact with him.
The loss pushed the Heat’s record down to 29-33, keeping them in seventh place in the Eastern Conference.
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