Erik Spoelstra is widely regarded as the NBA’s best coach. He’s a two-time NBA champion whose teams frequently outperform their talent and utilize creative and thoughtful tactics. The last coach in the NBA you’d ever expect to directly attribute a loss to would be Spoelstra. But on Tuesday, one Spoelstra decision effectively cost Miami its NBA Cup opener against the Detroit Pistons.
The big moment came in overtime. The Heat trailed by as many as 18 points earlier in the game, but scratched and clawed their way back into it and eventually tied the game on a Tyler Herro 3-pointer with 32 seconds to play. In the extra frame, the Heat led by two points, 121-119, with only 1.8 seconds to go, making a victory look almost certain. But Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff drew up a brilliant inbounds play to get Jalen Duren a game-tying dunk off of a lob pass, and a visibly frustrated Spoelstra walked onto the court and quickly signaled for a timeout.
The only problem? Miami was out of timeouts.
Calling a timeout when you don’t have any left triggers an automatic technical foul. That gave the Pistons a technical free throw, which Malik Beasley sank to give Detroit a 122-121 lead, and then took the ball out of Miami’s possession with 1.1 seconds left on the clock. Instead of Miami getting a chance to win the game at the end of overtime, Spoelstra’s mistake effectively cost the Heat the game.
To add insult to injury, Spoelstra nearly made two other mistakes in the final two seconds against Detroit. The Heat almost played Detroit’s inbound possession with six players on the floor, which would have triggered a technical foul. And then, he tried to sub Kevin Love into the game after Beasley’s technical free throw thinking the Heat had possession and he could throw the inbounds pass. But when he realized Miami was in fact on defense, he pulled Love out to put Haywood Highsmith back in the game.
Detroit got the ensuing inbounds pass in and Haywood fouled Beasley, who sank one of two free throws to ultimately seal a 123-121 win for the Pistons.