Spoelstra takes blame for ‘horrible’ TO gaffe in Heat’s loss

DETROIT – Erik Spoelstra blamed himself for a “terrible mistake” after calling a timeout that the Miami Heat missed with 1.1 seconds left in overtime on Tuesday night, a technical foul that gave the Detroit Pistons the decisive one Free throw awarded.

Malik Beasley did it and the Pistons beat the Heat 123-121 on opening night of the NBA Cup.

“In the end I just made a serious mental mistake,” Spoelstra said. “That’s up to me. I feel terrible about it.”

The Heat had a 121-119 lead after Tyler Herro’s basket with 1.8 seconds left. But after a timeout, the Pistons ran a well-executed inbounds play in which Cade Cunningham threw a lob pass that Jalen Duren knocked down.

Spoelstra stormed onto the court fast and furious, calling a timeout.

“There’s really no excuse for this,” Spoelstra said. “I’ve been here for 17 years. We had talked about it in the huddle, I knew we had nothing. I just got emotional and reacted to it and just ended up making a terrible mistake. It’s a shame.” .”

Spoelstra has won two NBA championships, was an assistant coach on the U.S. team that won an Olympic gold medal this summer and was the overwhelming majority of executives who responded to NBA.com’s GM poll as the NBA’s best coach , earning 69% of the vote.

But he made a rookie mistake Tuesday that wiped out a brilliant performance from Herro, who scored 40 points, including 10 three-pointers.

“You don’t want a mental mistake like that to happen,” Spoelstra said before a long break. “Yes, you would have just liked to see it go into double extra time. That’s the kind of game it feels like. It deserves to go into double overtime without anyone getting in the way of it and unfortunately, even as an experienced coach, I managed to do it in that way.”