Erik Spoelstra’s ‘terrible’ mistake calling a timeout when Heat have none gives Pistons an unlikely victory

Even the best coach in the NBA has the occasional epic mistake.

Erik Spoelstra enters. The Heat found themselves in a tight overtime period NBA Cup Game with a feisty Pistons team on Wednesday night, but Tyler Herro kept them afloat – finishing with 40 points, making 10 three-pointers, plus dishing out eight assists, including this incredible alley-oop to a high-flying Bam Adebayo in the extra frame.

Everyone seemed a little tense in OT and it showed – Terry Rozier stepped out of bounds at a key moment, Cade Cunningham drove into a crowd and got stuck – but with the game on the line it was Herro again who got in the match came. lane and banking in a six-foot shot that put the Heat up by two with 1.8 seconds left in overtime.

All Miami needed was a stopover. They didn’t get it – Jalen Duren broke away from Adebayo as he walked to the basket and Cade Cunningham threw the alley-oop off the inbounds pass, and Duren tied it up. It was an ugly defensive possession by Miami with the game on the line.

A frustrated Erik Spoelstra instinctively called a timeout to set up a play with 1.1 seconds left — except Miami was out of timeout. That’s a technical error (just ask Chris Webber). The officials blew the whistle, huddled and then gave Miami the technical, which meant a free throw and the ball out of bounds for the Pistons. Malik Beasley sank the free throw and that was the ball game (the Pistons were fouled on the inbounds and Beasley sank a few more meaningless free throws).

The highlight of the evening was Jalen Rose’s reaction to Spoelstra’s timeout.

Spoelstra owned the post game, via Hunter Patterson of The Athletic.

‘That’s up to me. I feel terrible about it. There’s really no excuse for that. I am 17 years old. We had talked about it during the conversation. I knew we had nothing,” Spoelstra said during his post-match press conference. “I just got emotional and reactive about that. I just made a terrible mistake there at the end. It’s a shame because we really fought back.”

Miami is now 4-6 on the young season and trying to find their feet – and this loss really hurts their chances of advancing in the NBA Cup, they need to win now. Spoelstra probably isn’t too worried about the Cup, but he is frustrated with himself and this team as they look for ways to win with Jimmy Butler out.