The Miami Heat defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 111-108 on Friday night. It was a hard-fought battle that came down to the final seconds, and ultimately Miami was able to come out on top.
One day later, on Saturday, the NBA released its review of the calls made in the final minutes of the prior night’s outing.
According to the league, officials missed an illegal defense call on Andre Iguodala that would have given the Lakers the opportunity to even up the score with 28 seconds left.
After the game, Lakers head coach Frank Vogel cited bad refereeing as a key reason for his team’s defeat.
“It’s a tough loss,” he said.
“There’s no doubt about it. We were very close. I felt two bad calls at the end put Butler to the line. That’s unfortunate in a game of this magnitude.”
Those two possessions proved to be big.
“They were given four free throws and made it an uphill battle for us,” Vogel continued.
“Very disappointed in that aspect of the game.”
Interestingly enough, the league disagreed with Vogel’s assessment and ruled that those fouls were correct.
LeBron James, for his part, didn’t focus on the officiating. Instead he discussed LA’s final game-winning play attempt that saw him drive to the basket and kick the ball out to Danny Green, who promptly missed the shot.
She didn’t hold back. https://t.co/IfjSBtuoH2
— Game 7 (@game7__) October 10, 2020
“I mean, if you just look at the play, I was able to draw two defenders below the free throw line and find one of our shooters at the top of the key for a wide-open 3 to win a championship,” James.
“I trusted him, we trusted him, and it just didn’t go.”
Now, James is looking forward.
“At the end of the day, you don’t predetermine anything, and you take the game as it’s going, and you play,” he said.
“You play each quarter, you play each possession, and you live with the results. You don’t think about what could happen at the end of the game and things of that nature. You don’t get caught up in the aftermath.
Danny Green and Markieff Morris are getting reported to the NBA’s snitch hotline tonight. https://t.co/WAZkJki8T2
— Game 7 (@game7__) October 10, 2020
“You have to live in the moment and prepare yourself each and every possession because if you start to wander and your mind starts to go, you make a mistake. One thing about this team that we are playing, they make you pay for every mistake. It’s the same as when I was playing against Golden State all those years: You make a mistake, they make you pay. So we have to understand that.”
Game 6 between the Lakers and Heat is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
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A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
