The Miami Heat suffered another ugly loss inside the Kaseya Center as they start the four-game home stand against the New Orleans Pelicans with a loss Friday night, 111-88. Heat star Jimmy Butler and head coach Erik Spoelstra and spoke after the game to reflect on what went wrong for the team as the regular season comes closer and closer to the end.

Butler would lead Miami with only 17 points in what was a frustrating night for himself and the rest of the team as they shot 36 percent from the field and 27.7 percent from three-point range. The featured Heat star would say that the performance from the team was similar to the past where the offense dictates how they are on defense.

“It's just a retelling of what's happened to us a couple of times this season where whenever we don't make shots, we tend to let our offense dictate our defense in the sense of we don't guard nobody,” Butler said. “We don't hustle as often as we should and the game gets very ugly when were doing what we're not supposed to be doing.”

Spoelstra talks about how Pelicans “flattened” Heat

Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) and the rest of the bench looks on during the second half against the New Orleans Pelicans at Kaseya Center.
Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

The Heat would start the game out hot as they lead by double-digits, but it quickly turned around come the second half where they continued to struggle from the field and New Orleans didn't let up on the gas pedal. Spoelstra spoke to the media after the game and said that New Orleans' zone defense “flattened us out.”

“I thought we started the game out great, those first four or five minutes they went to the zone, that definitely flattened us out. And then from there, our level of energy, detail, and willingness to go to different layers of our offense was not great and then obviously it always works a little bit different if you knock down shots,” Spoelstra said. “There were some stretches during first half of that we had some good looks, or when several empty possessions and they're packing in the paint, staying in the zone and I would've done that too. There was some detailed things where we didn't just only have to live live with those in our aggressiveness and body movement, player movement, those were not examples of our best body of work and when they made us pay the price.”

Spoelstra talks about Miami's defensive performance against Pelicans

It was a mixed bag on the defensive side of the ball as Miami held down the Pelicans most explosive player in Zion Williamson to four points, but on the other hand CJ McCollum would score 30 points. Spoelstra said to ClutchPoints that while the first half was “in our wheelhouse,” the second was a different story and complimented McCollum for his performance.

“Throughout the first half, it was in our wheelhouse, it's always tough to look at things objectively, you feel it. You know, when they're going on runs, but we push that thing back, there's always gonna be ups and downs. We pushed to 46 to 42, that seems like a game in the 90s,” Spoelstra said. “There was a tough start of the third quarter defensively and offensively. And then we just had to dig and dig and dig the rest of that quarter and we did show some moments where we were able to do that, but not enough and McCollum was very good in those isolation situations, he was able to get to spots and shot make. And also when we're in the zone, he hit some big ones that made us think twice about staying in that.”

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Another loss at home for the Heat

With Friday night being the start of the four-game home stand, this could've been the beginning of a turnaround for Miami's performance at home with a middling record of 17-15 heading into the game. However, they drop another one inside the Kaseya Center as Butler said to ClutchPoints that whether it's at home or on the road, “we have a job to do.”

“Home or away, we have a job to do, we don't think anybody is scared to come in here and play us, don't think people are scared to play us on the road either,” Butler said. “Hopefully in the coming games we figure it out, put our heads down and get to work cause we definitely gotta start winning if we want to be where we want to be.”

Miami now drops to 38-32 on the season which now falls the team to the eighth seed in a tightly-packed Eastern Conference. Their next game is the second in the home stand where they will face the Cleveland Cavaliers Sunday night.