Heat's Late Time Out Makes Bulls Pout

Chicago Tribune

The Bulls' bench erupted when rookie Heat coach  Erik Spoelstra called a 20-second timeout with 30.9 seconds left and Miami up 13 points, simply to substitute for regulars  Dwyane Wade, Mario Chalmers and  Udonis Haslem.

Assistant Del Harris could be seen shouting toward the Heat bench, and coach Vinny Del Negro was surprisingly forthcoming when pressed if the timeout upset him.

"I don't know what they were doing," he said. "It's fine. But, you know, there are 30 seconds to go in the game, they're up 15 or 13 or whatever. But, whatever. We'll play them again."

Spoelstra defended his move in a tone somewhere between annoyed and angry.

"If they want to make a big deal about it, whatever," he said. "That is a common practice in the NBA. I was perplexed by that to be honest.

I think this is really bad form to be complaining. I do think that it's also very bad form to call a timeout in the situation that the heat did, however I think complaining about it is the sign of a losing team. I actually think VDN has done a fairly decent job with the situation he has been given, but this isn't the attitude I want to see right now.

I mean whatever, but lets face it we're a young team. What's important right now is instilling the right attitude. There is no reason that any part of VDN's comments should have been about the timeout. Nothing more than a, "Well it's not how I did it when I played, but we lost the game so that's the last thing I need to worry about," should suffice. He even gets a little jab to that fact he was a player and the heat coach went to high school with me.

VDN's mind should be if we lose we don't have the right to say anything about little things like that. When he becomes Jackson and fills his fingers up with rings then we'll back him up and defend all his little coaching feuds. Jackson is also much more funny when he rips on the other team's class.

Whatever.