Spoelstra takes blame for ‘terrible’ TWO fake in Heat loss

DETROIT — Erik Spoelstra blamed himself for a “terrible mistake” after calling a timeout the Miami Heat didn’t have with 1.1 seconds left in overtime Tuesday night, a technical foul that gave the Detroit Pistons the tiebreaking free throw.

Malik Beasley nailed it and the Pistons went on to beat the Heat 123-121 on the opening night of the NBA Cup game.

“I just made a serious mental mistake there at the end,” Spoelstra said. “It’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, with Cade Cunningham throwing a lob pass that Jalen Duren swatted down.

Spoelstra stormed onto the court fast and furious and signaled for a timeout.

“There’s really no excuse for it,” Spoelstra said. “I’m 17 years in. We had talked about it in a pinch, I knew we had nothing. I just got emotional and reactive to it and I just made a terrible mistake there at the end. 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 choice of managers responding in the NBA.com GM Survey as the NBA’s best coach, earning 69% of the vote.

But he made a rookie mistake Tuesday that negated a brilliant performance by Herro, who scored 40 points, including 10 3-pointers.

“You don’t want it to come down to a mental error like that,” Spoelstra said before an extended break. “Yeah, you just wanted to see this go to double overtime. That’s the kind of game it felt like. It deserved to go double OT and not have anybody get in the way of that, and unfortunately, as a veteran coach myself, I got . that way.”