Miami Heat player passes it to a teammate standing out of bounds in botched inbounds play with 40 seconds left

The Miami Heat invented a new and terrible way to lose a game on Wednesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Down by one point after a made basket with 41 seconds left, Heat point guard Norris Cole inbounded the ball by passing it to big man Hassan Whiteside.

Whiteside passed it back to Cole, who (for some reason) directed Whiteside to walk out of bounds and re-inbound the ball to Cole to start the play. The referee whistled the turnover, and the Timberwolves got the ball right back.

Cole apparently didn't realize that he had already inbounded the ball.

Here's the play:

The turnover gave the Wolves the ball back with 40 seconds to play. They missed a jumper, but ate up 15 seconds of clock.

The Heat still got two shots on the final possession of the game, but missed both, losing the game by one point.

After the game, Chris Bosh said of the turnover:

"Hell yeah, it's a missed opportunity. We're not going to get it back. That's one thing about this league: If you're in a situation where you can't really afford to lose any games, things are slipping away from us... And we're not concentrating. I don't understand that."

The inbounds turnover wasn't the sole cause of the loss, but the Heat could have given themselves another opportunity to win the game, and they lost it by committing one of the more foolish turnovers in recent memory.