The Miami Heat, despite getting Jimmy Butler back in the lineup after a seven-game absence, found their Monday night tussle against the Brooklyn Nets to be a difficult one as they were on the second night of a back-to-back. They seemed very lethargic, and it showed in the manner with which they began the game. They scored just 31 points in the first half thanks to a putrid 26.2 percent shooting from the field and an even more inexplicable zero percent from deep on 12 attempts.

The Heat, however, came back to life in the third quarter, scoring 37 points in that period alone, and thanks to Butler's late-game free throws, they were able to pull out a 96-95 victory in overtime over a Nets team that looked like they had the game won at some points.

This was an ugly victory through and through; in the NBA, one can never be picky about the nature with which one wins a game, but still, the Heat would want to take home wins in a much more comfortable manner. Nevertheless, even head coach Erik Spoelstra couldn't believe how ugly it got for them before they righted the ship against the Nets.

“You often talk about winning in the mud… One, does this even qualify as ‘mud?' Two, what was that whole grind like?” a reporter asked the Heat head coach.

“This was cement,” Spoelstra said while he looked at the reporter with bemusement as the whole room broke into laughter, per Bally Sports Heat via ClutchPoints Twitter (X). “Did you see that first half? I mean, that was ugly as it can get.”

Indeed, getting victories in the mud has been the Heat's M.O. for quite some time now. They love to muck things up, with the team taking after Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo's grind-it-out disposition on the court. Even during the Heat's comeback efforts, they ratcheted up the physicality, with Butler getting to the foul line 10 times, including two attempts in the final seconds to seal the victory, to manufacture points in a game where scoring was at a premium.

Nonetheless, Erik Spoelstra would know that winning in cement is not sustainable, so they will want to go off to much better starts moving forward.