Even the best coach in the NBA has the occasional epic screw-up.
Enter Erik Spoelstra. The Heat were in overtime of a tight NBA Cup game with a feisty Pistons team on Wednesday night, but Tyler Herro was keeping them afloat — he finished with 40 points, making 10 3-pointers, plus dishing out eight assists, including this incredibly alley-oop to a high-flying Bam Adebayo in the extra frame.
Everyone seemed a little tight and off in OT and it showed — Terry Rozier stepped out of bounds at a key momebt, Cade Cunningham drove into a crowd and got tied up — but with the game on the line it was Herro again, getting into the lane and banking in a 6-foot shot that put the Heat up two with 1.8 seconds left in overtime.
All Miami needed was a stop. They didn’t get it — Jalen Duren broke free of Adebayo while moving toward the basket and Cade Cunningham threw the alley-oop off the inbounds pass, and Duren tied it. 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 didn’t have a timeout left. That’s a technical foul (just ask Chris Webber). The officials blew the whistle, huddled, then gave Miami the technical, meaning a free throw and the ball out of bounds to the Pistons. Malik Beasley sank the free throw and that was the ballgame (the Pistons were fouled on the inbounds and Beasley did sink a couple more meaningless free throws).
Highlight of the night was Jalen Rose’s reaction to Spoelstra’s timeout.
Spoelstra owned it postgame, via Hunter Patterson of The Athletic.
“That’s on me. I feel horrible about it. There’s really no excuse for that. I’m 17 years in. We had talked about it in the huddle. I knew that we didn’t have anything,” Spoelstra said during his postgame news conference. “I just got emotional and reactive on that. I just made a horrendous 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 to advance in the NBA Cup, they have to win out now. Spoelstra probably isn’t too concerned about the Cup, but he is frustrated with himself and this team as they look for ways to win with Jimmy Butler out.
