Erik Spoelstra’s timeout mistake brings back bad memories for Jalen Rose

Erik Spoelstra is one of the most respected and highest-paid head coaches in the NBA and has been known for his disciplined play and getting the best out of his players for more than a decade. Even he will make some bad mistakes.

On Tuesday, he happened to manage to get an entire season out of them in two seconds, one of which brought back bad memories for viewer Jalen Rose.

In a stretch riddled with errors, Spoelstra’s Miami Heat blew a lead against the Detroit Pistons with just 1.8 seconds left in overtime. With the Heat holding a 121-119 lead after a timeout in Detroit, the trouble began when they nearly came out of the break with six players on the field.

Kel’el Ware got off the floor in time, but the confusion suggested Miami would get burned on the Pistons’ ATO play, which ended with an alley-oop by Jalen Duren to tie the game. Spoelstra was so frustrated that he immediately called a timeout.

The problem was that Spoelstra had no more timeouts.

That gave the Heat a technical foul and sent Malik Beasley to the free throw line. He made the shot to give the Pistons a one-point lead with 1.1 seconds left.

It’s unclear whether it was intentional or not, but the camera’s immediate cut to Rose, a former NBA player and ESPN personality, was an incredible job. Rose was one of the stars of Michigan’s “Fab Five” team that lost the 1993 NCAA championship game to UNC because Chris Webber famously called a timeout he didn’t have.

Spoelstra fully acknowledged the mistake after the game, calling it a terrible mistake:

That wasn’t actually the end of Spoelstra’s mistakes. After the timeout error, he replaced outlet pass maestro Kevin Love for a full-court pass as advancing the ball was not possible due to the lack of timeouts. Unfortunately, since it was a technical foul, it was still Pistons ball.

The end result was a foul on Beasley, who made another free throw, and an embarrassing loss to open the NBA Cup game.

The ending wiped out a tremendous fourth quarter for the Heat, who trailed by 14 at one point and went on a 9-0 run at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime. It was a typically dismal Heat win until it turned into an inexplicably sloppy Heat loss.