Erik Spoelstra's late-game mistake costs Heat in loss to Pistons

The Miami Heat have executed late in games multiple times, including in Sunday night's victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when Erik Spoelstra cooked up a beautiful play to set up Nikola Jovic for the game-winning layup.

But every team is bound to have mental errors, and Tuesday night against the Detroit Pistons was undeniably one of Spoelstra's biggest blunders of his coaching career. After Tyler Herro put the Heat up two with 1.8 seconds left, Miami needed one more stop to earn another hard-fought victory.

Erik Spoelstra may have cost the Heat a win with his uncharacteristic, late-game mistake.

Instead, Detroit put Miami in a tough spot with Malik Beasley setting a screen on Bam Adebayo to free up Jalen Duren for a wide-open lob.

It appeared as if the Heat were heading to double overtime in a thrilling game, but Spoelstra's frustrations boiled over on the bench. Rather than letting the Heat attempt a heave to win the game, Spoelstra inexplicably stormed on the court and attempted to call a timeout with none remaining, resulting in the Pistons knocking down a technical free throw to ice the game.

"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," Spoelstra said.

Spoelstra, who was recently voted by GMs as the best coach in the association, made a mistake that usually an inexperienced or bad coach makes. If there was a public poll on which coach would make the error of calling a timeout with none left, I would almost guarantee Spoelstra would receive little to no votes.

What makes this mistake even more shocking is that Spoesltra admitted that it was of everyone's knowledge that there were no timeouts left. Spoelstra has openly expressed his anger before either at referees or even his own players such as Jimmy Butler. But there was never an instance where Spoelstra's frustration boiled over so much to where Spoelstra costed the Heat a game until Tuesday night's defeat.

One of the most tragic parts about Spoelstra's error is that Jalen Rose was in attendance, who was one of the members of the "Fab Five" Michigan team where Chris Webber infamously called a timeout with none remaining in the 1993 National Championship game.

"Spo is one of the best coaches ever," Herro said. "It happens, great players make bad plays."

Seeing how Spoelstra is after losses, it's a good bet he will be kicking himself on the flight from Detroit to Indiana.

While it's clear to acknowledge Spoelstra took away the Heat's chance to win the game at the buzzer or in double overtime, Herro's comments show that the Heat will continue to rally around Spoelstra and that one massive error does not change that Spoelstra is still an elite coach.