“This game is very humbling. We come out with the right mindset, this is what will happen, this will what continue to happen,” Butler said. “Ain’t too much to say.”

“I think we came in with the right mindset, but I don’t think we sustained that mindset throughput the entire game,” Butler continued. “I think we played their game more than we played ours, going up and down, making it a pickup game. They’re good at that, they made shots tonight, we didn’t guard. That’s the league for you.”

Butler talks about going for a tie instead of win in last ditch opportunity

While it was a dogfight throughout the duration of the game, the fourth quarter is where Miami ultimately fell apart. After the Wizards went up by double-digits, the Heat would go on a run that would set them up to have the final shot of the game down two points.

Duncan Robinson got the call to go for a three-pointer to win, he missed, but then Butler got the offensive rebound, still went for the win, but couldn’t connect from deep. When asked in the heat of the moment if the thought ever came up to go for the tie, Butler gave ClutchPoints a simple and straightforward answer.

“I’m never going for the tie. Never,” Butler said.

Spoelstra with the bright side on the Heat’s loss to Wizards

Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra had a positive outlook on the disappointing performance to the Wizards while acknowledging it as a “tough loss.” He expressed that they didn’t lose because the team overlooked Washington who are lowly in the standings, but stood tall saying that they love this time of the year and they will prepare for the game ahead.

“It’s a tough loss, we’re well aware of that. Washington made some plays down the stretch. I know my basketball team, this is not a case of overlooking an opponent,” Spoelstra said. “We came in with a disposition and the right mindset to approach this game but this is what competition is about, sometimes another team will just make more plays as frustrating as that may be. I know, the team in the locker room, we approached both those games to win and I thought we did enough in all three games to win and we just didn’t do it.”

“We dropped this one. We’ll have to live with those results. This is also why we love this profession,” Spoelstra continued. “We love all the context and pressure at this time of year and we didn’t handle our business in these three games, but I know there’ll be teams in the east that don’t as well and we’re not leaving it up to them. We’re just gonna focus on ourselves, but this is a harrowing ride. Our group has the right intentions. We will just take a day off tomorrow, recalibrate, and get ready and prepare to practice on Tuesday for big game on Wednesday.”

Terry Rozier on if the loss is humbling for him and Miami

Terry Rozier had a solid game scoring 16 points while collecting seven rebounds and recording four assists. If there is a bright side, he’s starting to look comfortable with Miami, albeit in a loss that to him, it’s a “little bit of both” of being humbled and the situation not being too deep.

“I mean, in this league, when you play 82 games, it’s a little bit of both,” Rozier said to ClutchPoints. “You don’t ever want to get too high, you don’t want to get too low, like what can we do about today? So we got to worry about Denver Nuggets on Wednesday. So it is a little bit of both in this league, you got to move on.”

As Rozier mentioned, the competition ahead doesn’t get any easier as the Heat take a three-game losing skid into an NBA Finals rematch against the Denver Nuggets Wednesday inside the Kaseya Center. Miami is now 35-29 on the season which puts them now at eighth in the Eastern Conference.