MIAMI — Erik Spoelstra’s anguished look — the one you might see when people realize they locked their keys in their car — instantly revealed that the Heat coach knew what he had done.

The three-time champion, the man who just this summer was voted by NBA general managers as the league’s best coach, had made the most glaring in-game mistake of his professional life, calling a timeout when the Heat did not possess one, prompting the referees to call a technical foul with the score tied and one second remaining in overtime on Tuesday night in Detroit.

After the Pistons’ Malik Beasley hit the ensuing free throw awarded for the technical foul, after the Pistons walked off the Little Caesars Arena court with a 123-121 win, Spoelstra grimaced and did what he demands of his players — took ownership and accountability.

“I just made a horrendous mistake there at the end,” Spoelstra said.

The rule in play (No. 12A, Section IA) is quite clear: “Requests for a timeout in excess of the authorized number shall be granted and a technical foul shall be assessed.”

And because Spoelstra angrily walked onto the court and repeatedly signaled for a timeout, there was no expectation that referee Tyler Ford would figuratively or literally look the other way.

Instead of the Heat having a final second to try to win the game, the Pistons also kept possession because the rule for such situations says that “following the timeout and free-throw attempt, the ball will be awarded to the team which shot the free throw and play shall resume with a throw-in nearest the spot where play was interrupted.”

The irony is that it happened in a state scarred by such an error.

In the 1993 NCAA national championship game between Michigan and North Carolina, Wolverines star Chris Webber found himself trapped in a corner and called a timeout with 11 seconds left. But Michigan didn’t have any timeouts remaining, resulting in a technical foul and essentially handing the Tar Heels a national title in the New Orleans Superdome.

Coincidentally, Jalen Rose — a former ESPN commentator and member of that Michigan team — was in attendance Tuesday night, cameras capturing his jaw agape after Spoelstra’s miscue.

“I made just a serious mental error at the end,” Spoelstra said. “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 we didn’t have [a timeout]. I just got emotional and reactive on that…

“You don’t want to come down to a mental error like that. You would have liked to have seen it go double overtime. It deserved to go double OT and not have someone get in the way of that. Unfortunately, even as a veteran coach, I got in the way of that.”

South Florida media personality Dan Le Batard, knowing how unforgiving Spoelstra can be with himself, said Tuesday that “this will haunt him for the remainder of his life. I’m not kidding you.”

Webber continued to be ridiculed for the error for years. When he joined TNT’s “Inside the NBA” in 2008, part of his initiation ceremony was answering a question about how many timeouts a college basketball team gets in a game. The error was also referenced in the 2018 sports comedy film “Uncle Drew.”

Webber was dropped by TNT several years ago, but Turner’s biggest personalities defended Spoelstra on their studio show late Tuesday night.

“He was so pissed off because this can’t happen with less than two seconds to go,” TNT’s Charles Barkley said of Jalen Duren soaring over Bam Adebayo for a game-tying dunk off an in-bounds pass from Cade Cunningham with one second left, moments before Spoelstra signaled for a timeout that he didn’t have.

“Dude, that [dunk] can’t happen,” Barkley continued. “He was emotional. I love Mr. Spo. Hey, he made a mistake. No big deal. He made more good ones than bad ones. But he’s like, ‘how the hell do you give up a dunk with less than two seconds to go?’ ”

TNT’s Kenny Smith also downplayed the mistake, asserting that Spoelstra is “arguably a top-10 coach of all time, top-five coach of all time.”

Heat players also had Spoelstra’s back, as they turn their attention now to Friday’s game at Indiana, the fifth of a six game road trip for Miami (4-6).

“Spo is one of the best coaches ever,” guard Tyler Herro said. “It happens. ... It was an intense moment. Sometimes, you get caught up in that. He won us the game last game [with a clever design of a game-winning play at Minnesota]. We ride with Spo no matter what.”

Adebayo said of Spoelstra’s mistake: “It’s one of those things where he had a glitch, he had a mental mistake. In my eight years, that’s the first time he’s ever done it. I don’t plan on him doing it again. He feels truly bad about his decision.”

The timeout call wasn’t the only confusion late. The Heat initially had six players on the court before the inbound pass. Kel’El Ware — the Heat’s tallest player at 7-0 — was the one called back to the bench. Spoelstra never planned to have Ware defend the 6-10 Duren because the 6-9 Adebayo is the Heat’s best defender.

Instead, Spoelstra initially planned to have Ware defend the inbound pass but changed his mind when the Pistons had Cunningham inbound the ball.

“I was going to put some size on the ball,” Spoelstra said. “And then we made the change because Cunningham was taking the ball out. We just wanted to disrupt it, anything that was going into the field.

“But with Cunningham taking the ball out, I didn’t feel comfortable with Ware with a pass back to him. I don’t think that was really an issue. They just caught us on that play. [Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff] just drew up a great play. We didn’t have the backside protected.”

©2024 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.