Why Rick Carlisle keeps purposefully calling timeouts when he doesn’t have any left

The Mavericks called two timeouts in the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s loss to the Sacramento Kings after the team had already run out, prompting two technical fouls. He took one with 4:05 left in the fourth quarter, and another with 2:58 — just to yell at his team in a blowout loss.

“You don’t ever really run out of timeouts,” Carlisle said.

It’s the second time this season Carlisle has done that, calling two timeouts with 1:46 and 1:26 left on the clock playing the Knicks in a 93-77 loss on Nov. 14. And yes, it’s more about Carlisle seeing “teachable moments” that he wants to address before they slip away, rather than being angry or spiteful.

Carlisle admitted he’s done this occasionally in the past, although not often.

“For a regulation game last night, that’s got to be an NBA record — timeouts called in regulation,” Carlisle joked. “Now you get into a four overtime game, you’re gonna get extra timeouts. But that’s not the kind of record you want to be setting.”

You’ll probably see this from Carlisle in future losses, too. If the game’s out of hand, there’s no real downside.