The second annual Emirates NBA Cup tipped off on Tuesday night, with a number of teams taking the (very vibrant) floor for the league’s relatively new in-season tournament. In the East Group B, the Detroit Pistons played host to the Miami Heat and looked like they were going to cruise to a win before Miami got hot down the stretch of regulation.
With things tied up, the two teams went into overtime, where Miami was able to take a lead with just under two seconds left before things got very, very weird. First, the Pistons drew up a beautiful sideline out of bounds play to get a dunk for Jalen Duren that tied things up. And then, a furious Erik Spoelstra walked onto the court and called a timeout. There was just one problem: Miami didn’t have one, which meant we had a classic Chris Webber situation on our hands — perhaps it was fate that one of Webber’s Fab 5 teammates, Jalen Rose, was in attendance and lost his mind.
Malik Bealey stepped up to the free throw line, buried it to put Detroit ahead, then on the ensuing Pistons possession, got fouled one more time with 0.1 seconds left to seal the game. It was, quite frankly, stunning to watch Spoelstra make such a big mistake, but at the very least, we got a really entertaining end to a game that suddenly has some stakes to it because of the NBA Cup.