The matchup Friday night between the Miami Heat and New Orleans Pelicans was anticipated for a lot of reasons with a big one being that this would be the first time since the two teams got into a physical altercation on Feb. 23. The main stars in the skirmish was Heat star Jimmy Butler and Pelicans forward Naji Marshall who each plus others were suspended after the game last month, but while Miami got the win then, New Orleans came back and were victorious, 111-88.

Butler was asked about the possibility of the Pelicans having a larger chip on their shoulder since they were facing the Heat which they've had bad blood with. The 34-year old star says that he hoped it did and “that's fine,” but still stands on his words by saying that “we're still the better team.”

“I hope it added fuel to the fire. That's fine. They had a great game plan, they made shots. They came here and stole one. I'm going to stick by what I said. We're still the better team,” Butler said. “You can't win them all. We should have won that one. We damn sure should have. But we'll be alright.”

Pelicans poking fun at Heat and Butler for past comments

Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) looks to pass as New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum (3) defends during the first half at Kaseya Center.
Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

After the game in February, Butler was fired up and declared that not only are the Heat a better team than the Pelicans, but the next time they face off on their home floor, they will win. While this isn't out of the ordinary for Butler to be confident, statements like that can backfire if you don't get the result you want.

“We’ll beat them the next time, too,” Butler said that night. “We’re just the better team. We’re not going to say that they’re not a good team. But I don’t think this really matters. I think that when we get them on our home court, it’s going to be a different game. I hope they’re healthy and it’s going to be the same outcome.”

Marshall would post on his X (formerly known as Twitter) account a repost of Butler saying these words after Friday's Heat loss and said ““My Volume don’t work what he say ?????”. The post was later deleted, despite being retweeted by the official Pelicans account on the social media platform. The Pelicans account would also poke fun at Butler by posting the final score and saying “We're just a better team” which was one of many that night.

Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra would comment briefly about the heated altercation and responded if the players are using it to be fueled even more or if they're putting it in the past. Spoelstra would say to ClutchPoints that it's in the rearview mirror as the confrontation is “nothing compared to the 90s.”

“I think it's all behind,” Spoelstra said when asked if the past altercation is still in the minds of the players. “This is nothing compared to the 90s, really it was nothing.”

Heat's poor shooting performance was one of the worst all season

When it came to the actual game, it was arguably one of the more frustrating nights for the Heat as they had a poor performance in shooting the ball. They shot 36 percent from the field, but it was even more dreadful from the three-point line as they were 27.7 percent, missing a season-high 36 attempts from that range which is also the fifth-most in franchise history.

Butler would lead the team with 17 points to go along with five assists and four rebounds and mentioned how they played better in the first half, but the second half was when they got worse. He mentioned how the poor offense led to the same effort on defense.

“Definitely missing a lot of shots, but I think we were guarding better. Whenever we weren't making shots, we were still playing defense,” Butler said. “In the second half when we weren't making shots, we weren't getting back, weren't rebounding, we weren't standing in front of the ball…then it got out of hand.

Pelicans threw a lot of zone defense at the Heat which Spoelstra said after the game that it “flattened” them out during the process. Butler would comment on that saying they got “stagnant” and needed to “be more aggressive.”

“We got stagnant, we were just passing the ball around the perimeter, we got to be better at attacking,” Butler said. “Anybody got drive that bad baby into the paint and pass it to the weak side and find the open guy, we just got to do a better job of that, be more aggressive, in transition. All of those things we didn't do tonight, if we would have, then we would've been alright.”

Butler talking offense dictating defense and middling home record

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For Butler, the performance was all too similar to previous losses in the season where if the shots were not falling for Miami, it would “dictate our defense in the sense of we don't guard nobody.” While the famed “Heat Culture” is known for out hustling any other team on any given night, Friday was one of the worst examples of that.

“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.”

The loss drops the home record to 17-16 which is middling compared to previous years where playing inside the Kaseya Center was an immense strength for the Heat. Butler would say to ClutchPoints that “we don't think anybody is scared to come in here and play us.”

“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 is now 38-32 on the season which puts them eighth in the tightly packed Eastern Conference. The Heat will next play the second game in the home stand as the Cleveland Cavaliers come into town with 13 games left in the regular season.