The Brooklyn Nets will be hosting the Miami Heat on Saturday night in what is a marquee matchup between two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. Miami currently has the best record in the East, while Kevin Durant and his Nets remain as one of the favorites to go all the way this season.

As it turns out, however, the Heat will be without head coach Erik Spoelstra for this highly-anticipated matchup. According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, Spoelstra is going to miss just his third game throughout his 14-year career. The reason behind Spoelstra's mysterious absence was not revealed, except for the fact that it is because of “personal reasons.”

It is worth noting that Spoelstra was recently involved in a heated altercation with Heat talisman Jimmy Butler. The pair had to be separated by Miami players as they got involved in a rather unsavory shouting match during their loss to a shorthanded Golden State Warriors side on Wednesday night. Naturally, Heat vet Udonis Haslem also got in the mix, and he too had to be held back by teammates.

It seems as though Spoelstra and Butler have since made up and have put this incident behind them. While it might be tempting to connect the dots here, it does not sound like Spoelstra's absence is related to his current relationship with Jimmy Butler.

In Spoelstra's absence assistant coach Chris Quinn will be taking over head coaching duties for the Heat against the mighty Nets. Quinn himself admitted that he was surprised by this development when he was informed about it:

“Couple hours since I found out,” Quinn said. “I’m not re-writing the book by any means. We have a culture in place.”

Prior to Saturday night, coach Spo has missed just two games in his career. In both instances, Spoelstra was absent because of the birth of his sons. This is how committed coach Spo is to his craft. This only means that something extremely important has come up for Spoelstra to miss his third game in 14 years. We just hope everything's fine with coach Spo and his family.