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.
“I just made a serious mental error,” Spoelstra said after the game. “That’s on me. I feel horrible about it. There’s truly 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. I just got emotional and reactive on that and I just made a horrendous mistake there at the end.”
The state of Michigan has a very unfortunate history with excess timeout technical fouls. During the 1993 National Championship Game, University of Michigan star Chris Webber famously tried to take a timeout that the Wolverines didn’t have. That cost Michigan, which trailed by two points, a chance to tie the game, and North Carolina ultimately won the championship.
In March of 2023, Pistons guard Jaden Ivey made the same mistake, calling a timeout Detroit didn’t have with 9.7 seconds remaining in a game against the Chicago Bulls. The foul is otherwise rare in high-level basketball, though Stephen Curry notably almost cost the Golden State Warriors a playoff game against the Sacramento Kings in 2023 the same way.
For once, the fans in Michigan got to see the excess timeout technical work in their favor on Tuesday. And as the cherry on top, Jalen Rose, Webber’s co-star on those 1993 Wolverines, was in the building for Spoelstra’s gaffe. Rose’s reaction will live on as one of the enduring visuals from the game.
Spoelstra’s mistake holds special significance in light of when it came. Not only did he cost the Heat a regular-season game, but Tuesday was the beginning of the NBA Cup. By losing to Detroit on Tuesday, the Heat more or less ensured that they will need to sweep the rest of their group (the Toronto Raptors, Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers) to give themselves a chance at advancing to the knockout stage.
Instead, it’s the Pistons who kick off group play with a huge win. All because the best coach in the NBA committed an extremely uncharacteristic error.
