Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Gabe Vincent takes a stand
Edwards’ erased dunk just one of the surprises in chippy contest
MINNEAPOLIS — Gabe Vincent clarified one element of Wednesday night’s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves shortly after its conclusion: he’s still alive.
“Charge,” the Miami Heat guard posted on Twitter, alongside a “man shrugging” emoji.
Because while having Anthony Edwards’ highlight dunk erased from the scoring ledger might not have been the popular verdict, Vincent at least had the gumption to stand in for that moment and later stand up for the result.
With 10:54 to play in what turned into the 113-101 loss that dropped the Heat to 1-2 on their four-game, nine-day trip, Edwards elevated to heights rarely seen and threw down a resounding, rim-rattling, Sports Center-level dunk that personified the explosiveness of the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA draft.
Celebration and raucous reaction followed . . . as did a whistle by referee Curtis Blair.
Offensive foul. Turnover Timberwolves. Vincent rising to his feet (after senses were regained) clapping, as the Heat took back possession, all as Edwards turned to his bench imploring a replay challenge that would not follow.
“If I’m refereeing that game and you dunk on someone like that, I’m not calling a charge,” Edwards said. “And you at home? I’m not calling a charge.
“I don’t care if he was three feet above the circle, I’m not calling a charge. No way.”
The moment only further stoked the crowd in what already had turned chippy, with technical fouls well before that moment assessed to Edwards and Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, as well to Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, forward Jimmy Butler and captain Udonis Haslem, who did not even see action.
To Vincent, it was not his Edwards moment in time, but rather what transpired otherwise, that left him somewhat dazed and confused.
“I mean they were throwing us to the ground, doing whatever they wanted and we couldn’t do it back,” he said of the game that left neither side particularly pleased with the officiating. “Plain and simple, just like it looked.”
Even before Edwards (at altitude) vs. Vincent, there was a dustup with 29.9 seconds left in the third period between Edwards and Butler, when Butler went to grab the ball out of Edwards’ hands following an Edwards travel, and Edwards responded with a shove.
It was another Wednesday moment when Edwards won over the home crowd, one that had jeered Butler throughout, with memories still ingrained of Butler forcing his way out of Minnesota three years ago.
“Him taking the ball out my hands, I was like, ‘Come on bruh. You ain’t that serious. The ball’s going to get there. You all got the ball,’ ” Edwards said after closing with a game-high 31 points. “I felt like I had to let him know just chill.
“He ain’t going to fight nobody out there. All that walking up on each other, that stuff ’s for the birds, man. I ain’t about to fight. I don’t get into all that.”
It was the rare night when composure was not on the Heat’s side.
“The game got a little chippy,” said point guard Kyle Lowry, with the Heat now turning their attention to Saturday night’s game against the resurgent Chicago Bulls at the United Center. “It was just one of those games when they had the momentum and emotion all on their side and they rode that a little bit.”
It didn’t help, either, when Lowry fouled out with 5:29 to play and the Heat within three, Spoelstra unsuccessful on a challenge to rescind that sixth foul. It was while Lowry was sitting with his five fouls that the physicality of the ‘Wolves turned the momentum
“It wouldn’t have been that physical because we would have kept the lead, I believe,” Lowry said of the outcome without his foul trouble. “But it happens.”