Heat's Dewayne Dedmon ejected for launching massage gun onto court during game - Yahoo News Canada

[massage]

This is an NBA first.

Dewayne Dedmon was ejected Tuesday after launching a massage gun onto the court during game play. The Miami forward got into a heated discussion on the Heat bench, and as he walked away from the confrontation, he smacked a massage gun in apparent frustration. That smack launched the gun over fans sitting in courtside seats and into the middle of the court as the Heat set up their halfcourt offense against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Heat clearly didn't enjoy the on-court sideshow, as the team announced Wednesday it was suspending Dedmon for one game without pay for conduct detrimental to the team. The decision was reportedly made "in consultation with the NBA."

At the beginning of the video below, you can see Dedmon walking in a white Heat uniform on the left side of the screen by the Miami bench. It's difficult to tell from that angle exactly what happens, but the massage gun comes crashing into the scene near the top of the 3-point line in the middle of a group of players.

Close-up replay shows Dedmon walking away from the Heat bench, then smacking the massage gun. It's not clear if launching the device was his intent, but that was the result. And it could have gone a lot worse.

Massage guns are heavy pieces of equipment. Dedmond and everyone involved were lucky it didn't hit somebody's head. It first had to clear the fans sitting directly in front of Dedmon and managed to miss a handful of players from both teams who were in the vicinity when it landed on the court.

Regardless, Dedmon should expect more than an ejection once the league office takes a closer look.

TNT cameras also caught the leadup to incident, as Dedmon got into an argument with head coach Erik Spoelstra during a timeout.

It's not clear what prompted the argument, but it's evident that it wasn't resolved to Dedmon's satisfaction.

The Heat secured a dramatic win despite the tension on the bench. Miami set an NBA record for free throws without a miss in a single game, going 40-for-40 at the stripe. Jimmy Butler secured the 112-111 win with the record-breaking free throw with 12.2 seconds remaining.

Miami Heat center Dewayne Dedmon argues with head coach Erik Spoelstra before storming off the court during their game Tuesday. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)