A few seconds before the end of overtime between Miami and Detroit, Erik Spoelstra reacted with frustration to an alley-oop left too easily by his team, calling a timeout which however the Heat did not have available. The mistake gave the Pistons the free throw to pass with 1.1 seconds left, effectively giving the victory to the home team. “The mistake is mine, I feel terrible. There is no excuse” said the coach after the match
Erik Spoelstra he is still far from the end of his career, but there is no doubt that he will one day enter the Springfield Hall of Fame. But even the best people make mistakesand Spoelstra’s mistake makes even more noise precisely because he is one of the best coaches in the league. It all began a few seconds before overtime between his Miami Heat and the Detroit Pistonswith a throw-in in favor of Simone Fontecchio’s team. Even before the return to the pitch the Heat came very close to a sensational mistake, given that they had six players on the pitch – an eventuality that would have resulted in a technical foul, if they had not managed to remove one in time. Luckily for them, rookie Kel’el Ware was put back on the bench, but the last-second substitution created some confusion among the Heat, who they gave the easiest of alley-oops to their opponents for the dunk to tie the game at 121-121 signed by big man Jalen Duren. Furious about the basket just conceded, Spoelstra entered the field immediately calling a timeout – without remembering, however, that he no longer had any available. As per the rules, the referees then gave a technical foul on the Miami bench and consequently a free throw administered by Malik Beasley for the pass with 1.1 seconds leftas well as possession of the ball for two further free throws (only one scored) for the final 123-121 in favor of Detroit.
Spoelstra: “It’s all my fault, it can’t happen after 17 years”
After the match Spoelstra did not shy away from his mistake taking full responsibility for what happened. “I committed a serious mental mistake in the end. It’s all my fault and I feel terrible about what happened. There’s really no excuse. I have 17 years of experience under my belt. We talked about it during the huddle: I knew we had no timeouts leftI got caught up in the emotions and reacted instinctively after the basket immediately, making a horrendous mistake. You never want a game to boil down to a mental mistake like that. The game deserved to go to double overtime and not that there was anyone to prevent it with a mistake. Unfortunately, even as a coach with many seasons behind him, I was the one who made that mistake“.
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Jalen Rose also remains banned on the sideline
By a strange twist of fate, Jalen Rose was also present on the sidelinea native of Michigan and legend at the local university where the Wolverines playwho should know something about clumsily called timeouts. In the historic 1993 NCAA final with the “Fab Five” in fact his teammate Chris Webber called one in the final minute of the game against North Carolina even though his team ran out of themreturning the ball to the opponents and thus condemning Michigan to defeat. Mindful of this memory, the television directors immediately framed Rose after Spoelstra’s mistakewith the former ESPN television face left to say the least dumbfounded by what happened.
