It may not have been intentional, but it wasn’t necessary for Miami Heat forward Kevin Love when Memphis Grizzlies guard Desmond Bain went nuts on Wednesday night.
So even after the Heat completed the loss, their fifth win in seven games, Love still took a moment to collect his thoughts, which left Bain with the first ejection of his career.
6:44 to play with what turned into Heat’s 138-119 winBain was charged with an offensive foul.
In this case, aggressive was somewhat of an operative word.
As officiating staff indicated an initial desire to continue playing with a general foul on Bain, the Heat’s in-house video operations almost immediately showed Bain’s left forearm and elbow swinging directly into Love’s groin. , in which Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and Asst. Chris Quinn waved to both lead official Mark Davis and the video board.
On television replays, Heat analyst John Crotty referred to Bain’s shot to Love as “lower-man territory”.
Davis then initiated a video review which led to the action being upgraded to a flagrant 2 foul, which mandated an immediate ejection.
Following his review, Davis announced, “Upon review, this foul has been determined as a major foul, penalty two, for unnecessary contact with Kevin Love’s groin. Bane will be ejected.”
As defined by the NBA, a flagrant 2 foul is “unnecessary and excessive contact by a player against an opponent.”
Yes, Love later said, felt unnecessary and overly right – or, really, wrong.
“Yeah, I mean that’s only happened a few times in my 15, about 15 years,” Love said. “And Bain, he’s a big guy. But I tried to hedge to show it on the screen. I don’t know if he was looking for a foul or what. But just put in a bad position and it hurt a lot.” Well taken in the groin.
Love stopped, then continued.
“And all the men here, you’ve been hit hard enough where your back starts to ache, where I was,” he said, “and it started cramping a little.”
Love was quickly back to accelerate in the game, finishing with 10 points and six rebounds in his 18:16.
Oladipo sits
With Kyle Lowry completing his first week back from a months-long absence due to knee soreness, and with the NBA’s most injured roster back in relative health, Guard Victor Oladipo has been a strange player On Wednesday night, for the first time this season, he was ruled out due to a coach’s decision.
The move came after Spoelstra ejected guard Max Strauss for the second half of Monday night’s home win over the Utah Jazz after Duncan Robinson was taken out of the mix earlier.
According to tracking on SpoTrac, the Heat lead the NBA in player-games this season at 268, with the Golden State Warriors second at 241.
“How it (Wednesday) night played out wasn’t necessarily what was in the cards for me,” Spoelstra said. “And the first person I talked to was obviously Vic. We haven’t been in a position for three or four months where we have everybody available. I had every intention of playing him in that first quarter. Last game, it was Max who had to make the sacrifice in the second half. tonight, it was Vic, I don’t have the answer right now, but I have sympathy for him.
“I’ve got a few days to figure it out before Saturday (in Chicago). But it’s a nice luxury where you have everybody available, and we have this depth, and we have a lot of different weapons and There’s versatility. But there’s also the human side to it, that you can’t play everybody and I understand that completely.”
big number
With Wednesday night’s win, the Heat improved to 28-10 when scoring 110 or more and 14-5 when scoring 115 or more this season. They also improved to 12-3 when shooting 50% or better from the field. , , Wednesday was only the sixth time in the Heat’s 38 wins that they won by double digits.
