The Heat were shown up on their own home floor on Wednesday night. Against a Golden State Warriors team without Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, or Klay Thompson, Miami was outplayed in an uncharacteristic 118-104 loss.
Tempers began to flare on the sidelines as Jordan Poole and Co. started piling on the Heat in the third quarter. Head coach Erik Spoelstra, Jimmy Butler, and Udonis Haslem had a fiery exchange between them that went viral for all of NBA Twitter to bear witness.
https://twitter.com/WorldWideWob/status/1506806985747939332
The Heat coach was asked about the flare-up after the game. He tried to keep it light at first with a joke to explain what went down, then pointed to the team's innately competitive nature for the cause.
Via Bally Sports Florida:
“Everybody was wondering where dinner plans were tonight after the game,” the Heat coach joked at first to break the tension.
“It was pretty clear. We have a very competitive, gnarly group. We were getting our asses kicked. Two straight games we were not playing to the level that we wanted to play. I would say personally every single person in that huddle was pretty animated in our disappointment in how we were playing,” Erik Spoelstra continued.
The Miami Heat still hold the East's top spot and have a wide body of work beyond just this one bad loss to the Warriors. It's more than likely that Jimmy Butler, Erik Spoelstra, and Udonis Haslem will squash any beef before the next game.