NEW YORK — In the last minute of Miami's 117-115 loss at Indiana on Sunday, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has acknowledged two officiating mistakes: one erroneous call and one missed call. This setback helped drop the Heat into the eighth slot in the Eastern Conference heading into the final week of the season.
According to the league, T.J. McConnell of Indiana committed a foul on Philadelphia's Tyler Herro when he was attempting to make a three-point shot with approximately 55 seconds remaining. On the play, there was no call for a foul.
In addition, the league stated that the official who called the foul against Heat center Bam Adebayo with 17.1 seconds remaining, Marat Kogut, made a mistake in his decision. The subsequent foul call resulted in two free throws being made by Myles Turner of Indiana.
In its public report outlining calls and non-called made in the final two minutes of close games, the league stated on Monday that Adebayo "makes clean contact with the ball, simultaneous to Herro... making incidental hand-on-ball contact to dislodge it from Turner." This information was included in the report.
When it came to contesting the foul that was called on Adebayo, Miami did not have any further challenges. The Heat attempted to use it earlier in the fourth quarter, but they were unsuccessful.
The sixth-ranked team in the Eastern Conference is still Indiana. As a result of Miami's defeat and Philadelphia's victory in San Antonio later on Sunday night, the Heat have fallen to the eighth spot in the rankings.
The Heat would have been in the sixth slot in the rankings if they had won their game against Indiana, which was a game in which they were trailing by 22 points before making a comeback to make it close.
It is guaranteed that the top six clubs in each conference would be placed in the playoffs. A play-in tournament will be held the following week to decide the seventh and eighth seeding. The teams that place seventh through tenth in each conference will be eligible to participate in the tournament.
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