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SI:AM | Play-In Thrillers Were a Perfect NBA Playoffs Appetizer

The Heat-Hornets and Trail Blazers-Suns games were a welcome break from the usual play-in snoozefests.
Dan Gartland|
LaMelo Ball and the Hornets prevailed in a wild play-in game against the Heat.
LaMelo Ball and the Hornets prevailed in a wild play-in game against the Heat. | Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

In this story:

Miami HeatCharlotte Hornets

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I can’t believe I forgot to mention the fun sports celebrity run-in I had last week. I went to a Broadway show and spotted legendary lacrosse player Paul Rabil chatting with actor Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction, The Last of Us, The Batman). Maybe that’s only cool if you played high school lacrosse like me, but it was interesting to see these guys from totally different worlds chatting like old friends.

In today’s SI:AM: 
🐝 Wild game in Charlotte
☘️ Jeremiyah Love profile
🙄 NCAA’s broken enforcement process

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More games like that, please

As a matter of principle, I’m not a huge fan of the NBA play-in tournament. I don’t need to see sub-.500 teams battle it out for the right to get smoked in the first round by a championship contender. And it doesn’t help that the games usually aren’t very good. Last season, four of the six play-in games were decided by a margin of at least 14 points. 

But I may have to reconsider my stance. Tuesday night’s play-in games were actually fantastic. The first one—the win-or-go-home game between the No. 9 Hornets and the No. 10 Heat—was an epic overtime battle that Charlotte won on a clutch play by LaMelo Ball. In the second game, the Trail Blazers clinched the No. 7 seed with a fourth-quarter comeback over the Suns, powered by Deni Avdija’s 41 points. 

The Western Conference game was good, but it was nothing compared to the outrageous game in Charlotte earlier in the night. 

Where do you even begin to explain what happened in Heat-Hornets? The nuttiness started early, when Bam Adebayo was forced to leave the game after being tripped by Ball one minute into the second quarter. Ball fell to the ground after having a shot blocked, and as Adebayo attempted to corral the loose ball while standing on one leg near the baseline, Ball used his hand to take Adebayo’s foot out from under him. 

Ball was not penalized for the play, and Adebayo was eventually ruled out for the rest of the game with a back injury. 

“I apologize on that one,” Ball told reporters after the game. “I got hit in the head, didn’t really know where I was, but I’m gonna check on him and see if he’s okay and everything.”

Even without Adebayo, the Heat hung around. Davion Mitchell, Andrew Wiggins and Tyler Herro combined to score 78 points. Kel’el Ware played a season-high 42 minutes in Adebayo’s absence and grabbed 19 rebounds, tying his season high. Several Charlotte players stepped up, too. Ball had 30 points, Miles Bridges had 28 and Brandon Miller had 23. The result was a rollercoaster of a game in which the score was tied 17 times and the lead changed hands 16 times. (Adding to the insanity was the fact that the Prime Video stream failed with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter.) 

The real star of the night, though, was Hornets guard Coby White, who went absolutely ballistic in the third quarter. White, a North Carolina native who played for UNC, entered the game for the struggling rookie Kon Knueppel with 5:25 left to play in the third. He proceeded to score 14 quick points and hit all five of his shot attempts, including four from behind the arc. And what did White do for an encore in the fourth? He hit an off-balance three-pointer to tie the game with 10.8 seconds left. 

That sent the game to overtime, where it was Ball’s turn to play the hero. He made a tough layup with 4.7 seconds on the clock to give the Hornets the lead. Bridges blocked Mitchell’s attempt at the buzzer, and Charlotte survived. 

It was an excellent game that was elevated by the energy of the Hornets fans. It’s been a brutal decade to root for Charlotte, and they were clearly desperate to see their team return to the playoffs. The Hornets haven’t made the postseason since 2016, just two years after they dumped the Bobcats name. They won just 67 games over the past three seasons, the worst in the NBA, and through the first half of this season it looked like they were headed for another basement-dwelling finish. The Hornets were 14–26 in their first 40 games, but have gone 31–12 since (including last night’s win). Only three teams in the league have won more games over that span: the Spurs, Celtics and Pistons. 

The Hornets are on a remarkable hot streak, but they still have some work to do to make the playoffs. They’ll face the loser of tonight’s Magic-76ers matchup on Friday in a game where the winner will earn the No. 8 seed. Will the winner of that one pose much of a challenge for the first-place Pistons? Or do the Blazers stand a chance against the mighty Spurs? Maybe not, but at least we got two fun games as an appetizer for the playoffs. 

The best of Sports Illustrated

Jeremiyah Love tosses a football and smiles. Text says: The NFL’s Next Superhero
Kohjiro Kinno/Sports Illustrated

The top five…

… non-NBA things I saw last night: 
5. Dodgers prospect Zach Ehrhard’s inside-the-park grand slam. 
4. A nifty goal by the Penguins’ Elmer Söderblom. 
3. Denzel Clarke’s leaping catch at the wall. 
2. Adolis García’s perfect throw to nail a runner at third. 
1. Back-to-back-to-back homers for the Angels in the first inning against the Yankees.

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland writes Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, and is the host of the “Stadium Wonders” video series. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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