nba espn, NBA Betting, Inside NBA’s unwritten rule: Passing the ball with seconds left on clock.
You see, Wood made the gesture not as an acknowledgement for the assist but as a nonverbal apology.
Wood knew he had broken an unwritten NBA rule.
He had tossed a teammate a “grenade,” as passes for contested, low-percentage shots in the final seconds of the shot clock are commonly known.
It’s a rare instance when a pass is perceived as a selfish play and can create tension — often passive-aggressive actions, such as grumbling to others — between teammates. A blatant grenade is almost always followed by the passer publicly admitting fault, much like the gesture Wood made toward Dinwiddie during the Mavs’ Dec. 12 home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Wood’s grenade was particularly egregious. After an offensive rebound was tipped out to Wood, resetting the shot clock to 14 seconds, he went one-on-one, taking eight dribbles while meandering from the top of the arc to the left wing. Thunder rookie forward Jalen Williams reached in and deflected the last dribble. Wood fumbled while recovering the loose ball, and then he spotted Dinwiddie, who had floated near the half-court logo with his teammate in trouble.
Dinwiddie caught the pass with less than a second left on the shot clock and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander within arm’s reach. Dinwiddie shifted to his right to get just enough room to put up a 29-foot prayer.
As the ball sailed through the air, Wood put his hands above his shoulder, a “Whoops!” sort of shrug. Dinwiddie did the same thing after the ball banked off the backboard and went in the hoop.
Dinwiddie would give Wood a pass for this grenade, regardless of the result. It wasn’t actually a violation, according to the version of the unwritten rule that Dinwiddie learned as a rookie with the 2014-15 Detroit Pistons. That interpretation allows for a team’s primary shot creators (Luka Doncic and Dinwiddie on the Mavs at the time) to be acceptable safety valves in case of emergencies. (Rookies are also exceptions to the rule, meaning it’s fine to force them to jack up a bad shot.)
“You can throw it to one of us — or, if [rookie Jaden] Hardy was out there, you can stick him with it. Like, oh, well!” Dinwiddie told ESPN, laughing, in an interview weeks prior to being traded to the Brooklyn Nets in the Kyrie Irving deal.
“It’s different when you’re a shot creator — and then obviously rookies can’t get paid anyway. But I’ll shoot it. I don’t really too much care, to be honest. Give it to me. I’ll fire it up there every time.”