The Los Angeles Lakers came inches away from beating the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night.
But a missed shot at the end of regulation and a Stephen Curry Flurry led to a 127-123 loss for the Lakers.
The opportunity to win for the Lakers came with about five seconds left. Julius Randle rebounded a miss by Kevin Durant, and looked to push the ball up the floor with the game tied at 109.
But Lakers head coach Luke Walton opted to take a timeout to set up a play that saw Ingram drive to the basket, but miss.
While the Lakers were generally happy with the look they got to end the game, LaVar Ball had some opinions about the sequence, as he shared with Chris Haynes of ESPN.
“When Julius had that ball at the end, he should've threw it forward,” LaVar Ball said. “Lonzo had a wide open layup, or a 3-pointer. That's game.”
Watching the play, Randle starts to rush down the other end while Lonzo Ball sprints ahead of him to an open area on the right side of the court. But the whistle appeared to sound before Lonzo Ball freed himself up enough to receive a pass.
Here's the play LaVar Ball highlighted as the "crucial point" in the Lakers missing an opportunity to knock off the Warriors: not kicking the ball ahead off KD's late miss + calling timeout. pic.twitter.com/7zBiKoZ3DT
— Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) November 30, 2017




Walton addressed his decision to call that timeout after the game, according to Tania Ganguli of the L.A. Times.
“I was debating that, and once the ball was loose and I looked, there was maybe 5 seconds left,” Walton said. “I wanted to make sure we got a good shot up. I liked that Brandon was hot. … Normally I would like to let that play go and let the players use the momentum to get something, but it just looked a little too chaotic.”
The sequence of events didn't seem to make it very feasible that Lonzo Ball would have any clear path the basket. After the ref blew the whistle, it appeared that some of the Warriors players stopped trying to get back on defense.
But the fact that LaVar Ball is making comments on how the Lakers coach is not surprising. He did the same in a recent Bleacher Report piece by Eric Pincus.
Watch the video below for LaVar Ball's full comments about the play.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcHMH-bFAiS/