2 Heat players briefly forget how inbounding works late in loss to Wolves
Sometimes, in the midst of a hard-fought, tightly contested battle, you can lose sight of things. Details slip past you. Things you get right 99 times out of 100 somehow go awry. It happens to all of us, at one time or another.
Unfortunately for Norris Cole and Hassan Whiteside, it happened on Wednesday night. To both of them. At the same time. At the worst possible time.
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With the Miami Heat trailing the Minnesota Timberwolves 102-101 after a midrange jumper by Wolves guard Kevin Martin with 41 seconds remaining, the Heat had the ball and a chance to regain the lead on the ensuing possession. Or, they would have, had Miami’s point guard and emerging beast of a center managed to successfully complete the inbounds. They couldn’t.
Cole picked the ball up on the baseline and then, while standing out of bounds, handed the ball to Whiteside, who was inbounds. Then, when Whiteside handed the ball back to Cole to bring it up the court, Cole directed his big man back out of bounds so that he could properly inbound the ball in the time-honored, center-to-point-guard fashion. Whiteside stepped out and obliged. And then, of course, referee Violet Palmer promptly blew her whistle and took the ball away from Cole and Whiteside, because, as it turns out, you’re not allowed to inbound the ball twice. That second one’s actually just you committing a turnover. Whoops!
The Wolves didn’t properly thank the Heat for their gracious, Lamar Odom-evoking gift, failing to get a bucket on their ensuing freebie possession when Martin missed a potential 3-point dagger. But Miami came up short on two clean looks at a winner, with Mario Chalmers missing a running floater with six seconds left and, after a Whiteside offensive rebound, Cole clanging a 3-pointer with just under two seconds on the clock. Gorgui Dieng came down with the board, and that was all she wrote, as the Timberwolves held on for a 102-101 win, just the fifth home win of the season for Flip Saunders’ club, to improve Minnesota’s NBA-worst record to 9-40.
Martin led five Wolves in double-figures with 30 points on 11-for-23 shooting to go with three rebounds, three assists and two steals, as Minnesota shot 51.4 percent from the floor as a team and just seemed energized by the Target Center return of point guard Ricky Rubio, who chipped in eight points and nine assists — including one eye-popping no-look feed for some two-handed Anthony Bennett thunder, in just his second game back from a high-ankle sprain that was more severe than the team initially thought.
Dieng’s monster fourth quarter (seven of his 13 points, six of his nine rebounds) helped spark the rally that brought Minnesota back from a seven-point deficit after three quarters and put them in striking distance late. And despite another unreal performance from Whiteside — a career-high 24 points, 20 rebounds (nine on the offensive glass), three steals, two blocks and a 12-for-13 mark from the floor that included makes on his first 11 shots — and an 18-point outing from Luol Deng, Miami couldn’t hold off the Wolves’ charge, losing for the fourth time in five games and the third time in four games since losing Dwyane Wade to another hamstring injury.
Things have been bad for the Heat, who now stand at 21-28, just a half-game up on the Brooklyn Nets for the East’s No. 8 seed, and they got worse on Wednesday night — especially at the end, in what Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel called “practically theater of the absurd at the finish”:
“It doesn’t matter who we play,” center Chris Bosh said, “they crawl into right back into the game with no resistance. It’s like we’re not learning anything.” […]
“I’m not really sure,” Cole said when asked what happened. “They didn’t score off it.” […]
“Our execution in the fourth quarter left a lot to be desired,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra understated.
Yeah, I think that’s safe to say.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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