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Breaking down the 30 seconds that effectively ended the Pistons' season

Leon Halip-USA TODAY Sports / Action Images

The Detroit Pistons lost their fifth consecutive game Tuesday night, in crushing fashion, to the team they're chasing for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot. Their postseason hopes are still technically alive, but with just seven games left to overcome a 2.5-game deficit, their defeat at the hands of the Miami Heat will likely prove to be a mortal wound.

They had no business losing the four games they lost coming into this one - all of which came against East lottery teams, including the three worst teams in the conference - but they especially had no business losing this game, which they led by four points with 30 seconds to play, and by one point with 0.3 seconds to play. Losing required a combination of bad luck, incompetence, and negligent officiating. Here's how it all unraveled:

30.1 seconds left: Pistons 96, Heat 92

The Heat were inbounding the ball on the sideline in Detroit's end, and the Pistons had Stanley Johnson guarding the inbounder, James Johnson.

The Pistons sophomore did his damnedest to deny the inbound, and very nearly forced a five-second violation.

Ultimately, though, he was just a little overeager. As he hopped up and down flailing his limbs in the sight lines of Miami's Johnson, Detroit's Johnson stepped on the sideline, earning a technical foul just before the five count. Goran Dragic hit the crucial free throw to make it a one-possession game.

30.1 seconds left: Pistons 96, Heat 93

Dragic took the inbound pass (freed by a possibly illegal screen by Hassan Whiteside), then took Ish Smith into the post, and hit a leaning floater over him. One-point game.

21.9 seconds left: Pistons 96, Heat 95

After almost turning the ball over under their own basket (bailed out by a kicked-ball call), the Pistons inbounded for a second time in the backcourt. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope took the inbound with three seconds already eaten into the shot clock, giving him just five seconds to get the ball past midcourt. He (and his teammates) seemed to realize this a beat late. Having hesitated after catching the pass, he suddenly had to rush to get the ball across. He just barely got it out of his hands, to Stanley Johnson, before the shot clock hit 16.

Johnson was immediately swarmed by Dragic and James Johnson, and the latter had his hands on the ball for about a half-second when the referees inexplicably called for a jump ball.

14.7 seconds left: Pistons 96, Heat 95

Miami's Johnson won the jump easily, tapping the ball to Dragic, who immediately turned and started sprinting upcourt along the sideline before the Pistons had a chance to trap. Caldwell-Pope swooped in and swiped the ball cleanly, but couldn't stay inbounds, aided perhaps by Dragic's forearm nudge to the back.

11.3 seconds left: Pistons 96, Heat 95

The Heat inbounded from Detroit's end deep into their own backcourt, where James Johnson gathered the ball and raced undeterred back into Detroit's end.

While there are reasons to avoid applying pressure in that situation - the possibility of giving a foul, or getting blown past and leaving the defense a man short - the Pistons certainly could've forced a few extra ticks off the clock, and perhaps even a harried mistake, given where Johnson started the play.

In any event, after he crossed midcourt and missed a go-ahead pullup jumper, all hell broke loose.

First, Rodney McGruder absolutely trucked Smith from behind while crashing the boards. The refs missed it.

Whiteside kept the rebound alive by beating out Andre Drummond from behind and tapping it off the glass. It ricocheted to Dragic, who was promptly tied up by Tobias Harris.

No jump ball was called, though Harris had his hands on the ball for at least as long as Johnson had when the previous jump was called.

Dragic wrested the ball away from Harris and somehow managed to muscle it up off the window and rim, with under a second remaining.

Whiteside beat Drummond to the rebound from behind again - Drummond barely got off the ground this time - and tapped it back into the hoop as time expired.

No time left: Heat 97, Pistons 96

And that, folks, is how the Pistons' playoff hopes went up in smoke Tuesday night.

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