In the lane

DUAL DUELING VIEWPOINTS: So what was it like playing with only two officials after referee Rodney Mott was forced out of action due to dizziness with 11:12 left in the third quarter of Tuesday’s Heat-Philadelphia 76ers game at AmericanAirlines Arena? It depends which side of the scoreboard you stood. Dwyane Wade, from the winning Heat locker room, “Let me give credit to the referees, Bill and Lauren,” he said of officials Bill Spooner and Lauren Holtkamp. “They did a great job without there being three refs out there. That is tough. We are always on the refs, but tonight they did a great job of just trying to man the game with just two of them.” Then there was 76ers center Joel Embiid from the losing locker room, “It was kind of odd playing with two refs. They didn’t see everything. Credit to them, they did a good job. But there were a couple of missed calls.” MUST CHANGE: The lesson from this season should be that two-way contracts should be based on allowable games in the NBA, not the 45-day limit allotted in this first season of the hybrid deals. Already this season it has had the Heat leaving Derrick Jones Jr. and Derrick Walton Jr. behind in Houston to travel commercial, just so they wouldn’t burn one of their allowable NBA days. Then, after Thursday recalling Jones Jr. from the G League, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra admitted the team had to check the rules to see if late-arriving Jones could be allowed in the building without it counting against his NBA days (he was inactive and it didn’t). Jones, seated in the locker room afterward, joked that he wasn’t actually there, but then did say the logical next step would be to count NBA games, and not days in future two-way contracts, when delineating the time allowed outside of the G League. MUTUAL ADMIRATION: It was during the All-Star break when Wade stood up for LaVar Ball from the perspective of an appreciation for a father who stands by his children. The mutual admiration continued with the Ball family with Lonzo Ball‘s Thursday appearance with the Los Angeles Lakers at AmericanAirlines Arena. “He doesn’t play for statistics,” Wade said of the 2017 No. 2 overall pick. “He plays to win. He moves the ball. His IQ of the game is incredible. He’s athletic. Everyone expects him to come in and be Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant wasn’t Kobe Bryant when he came in. He had to work to it. So he has a long career, hopefully, in front of him and we’ll see how it shakes out.” Ball then found himself marveling at Wade’s play in the Heat’s Thursday loss. “I wish it wasn’t against us,” Ball said of Wade’s 25-point throwback performance. “I wish I saw that on TV. But, yeah, he looks good, getting to the basket, hitting pull-ups. The shot on me, I was just like, ‘I don’t know how much better defense I can play.’ ” FAMILIAR TALE: Amid a report that he would be forced to retire in the wake of his ongoing hiatus due to pulmonary embolism, Milwaukee Bucks forward Mirza Teletovic took to social media to refute that he might meet the same forced-retirement fate as former Heat forward Chris Bosh. Teletovic first posted on Twitter, “It’s not over till I say it’s over recovery is going great.” He then expanded on Instagram, “A post came out saying that I’m retiring. I just want to say to you guys that I’m not. I’m still taking the medication; I have some more time to drink it. Recovery’s going great. Have a good day.” As it is, Bosh also has been talking about a return, after, he, like Teletovic, went through two such episodes.