CHRISTIAN WOOD SHEEPISHLY raised his right arm in the air and looked toward Spencer Dinwiddie, who had just made a 3-pointer off a pass from the Dallas Mavericks’ big man to push the lead to double digits midway through the fourth quarter.
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…
