Heat in a dark place amid longest losing streak since 2008. Can they dig themselves out again?

MIAMI — As Miami Heat fans exited Kaseya Center on Monday night, their complaints weren’t what you’d expect to hear from a fanbase coming to grips with its team’s longest losing streak since 2008.

“Holla at me in April!” yelled one patron in a black Dwyane Wade jersey.

“This is just practice, we know what’s gonna happen when the games really count,” said another fan in a red Heat T-shirt as he consoled his friend, who was wearing a Tyler Herro T-shirt.

For just about any other franchise, this type of talk after a seventh straight loss — a one-sided 118-105 defeat at the hands of the Phoenix Suns  — would sound delusional. With this team, it’s understandable, if not expected.

Last season, the Heat became the second team in history to reach the NBA Finals as a No. 8 seed after bouncing back from a loss at home to Atlanta in the first round of the Play-In Tournament. Four seasons ago, they made a run to the Finals in the Bubble as a No. 5 seed. Their fans have learned not to lose hope too quickly.

Optimism around another drastic turnaround, however, is being tested.

Miami went into Monday’s matchup against Phoenix desperately needing a win to avoid its longest losing streak in 15 years. The Heat caught the Suns on the second night of a back-to-back after a loss to Orlando on Sunday. Yet the Heat still found themselves trailing by double digits the entire second half, with the deficit ballooning to 28 points late in the third quarter.

How could the same core that made it to the Eastern Conference Finals three of the last four seasons look this lost?

Even Heat coach Erik Spoelstra,  who rarely allows his belief to slip, acknowledges that his team is not in a great place.

“Obviously, if you’re in this kind of hole, the level of urgency, concern is extremely high,” he said after Monday’s loss. “We’re just not doing it consistently hard enough, tough enough, with enough resolve.

“We have to come together to find some solutions and dig deep to figure out how to get one win. That’s what this thing is about right now.”

As bad as things are now, this team won’t reach the depths of the 2007-08 squad, which they’ll be connected to for at least the next few days. That team finished with a 15-67 record before Spoelstra took over as head coach the following offseason. It was tied for the worst record in franchise history.

Even after seven straight losses, the Heat hold the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference. But the threats around them are on the rise. The Pacers added Pascal Siakam. The Knicks added OG Anunoby. The Bucks replaced head coach Adrian Griffin with Doc Rivers. The Cavs added Evan Mobley back into a lineup that went 14-4 over an 18-game stretch without him or Darius Garland.

“We’ve just got to stick together through the good, bad and indifferent,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said. “I know what this group of guys wants out of this game — that’s a championship. They want to win. We’ve just got to get back to smiling, competing and guarding. Those are the things we can control.”

Miami is ineffective in the area that matters most in today’s NBA: offense. As other teams shatter scoring records weekly, the Heat’s offensive execution has cratered.

In January, they’re 28th in offensive rating (107.9 points per 100 possessions), with Charlotte (106.7) and Portland (105.7) the only teams behind them. Miami is  29th in field goal percentage (43.7), 23rd in 3-point percentage (35.0) and 25th in points in the paint (45.5)  this month.

In Monday’s loss, the Heat were shooting 34.3 percent from the floor and 32.1 percent on 3’s after three quarters. Even if your defense is stellar, it’s hard to keep up with anyone with numbers that bad.

The Heat have struggled to string together two or three quality possessions. Even after acquiring Terry Rozier — who had his best game as a Heat player in the loss to Phoenix, with 21 points while hitting four of six 3-pointers — the offense is misfiring.

“You can feel a palpable discouragement when we miss shots that we think are makeable,” Spoelstra said. “Then, it compounds into our lack of committed toughness and effort on the other end.

“At times, it feels like there’s a lid on the rim, even when we’re at point blank or wide-open shots. You can’t necessarily control that, but we can control our effort, our toughness and making those physical plays.”

Herro, Butler and Adebayo have been healthy and in the lineup throughout this seven-game losing streak, making the predicament even more bewildering for Miami. In the past few years, the Heat have constantly dealt with the absence of one of their main cogs. Even this season, their three best players   played only 16 of the team’s first 47 games together. But seven of those 16 games were part of this losing streak.

“We’re not playing hard enough. We need more out of everybody, including myself,” Herro said. “I feel like it starts with me, Bam (Adebayo) and Jimmy. It’s on us to bring more, and the rest of the guys will follow. That’s on us.”

Consider this turnover by Adebayo against the Suns, his third in the first five minutes of the game. Notice how his head drops as soon as he realizes his mistake.

The Butler-Adebayo-Herro trio may figure it out over time. We’ve seen them do remarkable things in the past. Rozier will help take some pressure off them, especially as he acclimates to the team’s offense. But any Heat turnaround still has to start with Butler, Adebayo and Herro being more on point with their execution.

“For whatever reason, we’re at this point where we have to take a painful step back to get those hopeful two steps forward,” Spoelstra said before Monday’s loss. “We can’t just gloss over things that have happened. We’ve got to learn from that.”

The Heat will remain a sleeping giant in the eyes of many — including many of their own fans — until someone finishes them off for good. What Butler, Adebayo and Spoelstra have achieved together can’t be overlooked.

But the downward spiral will only worsen if these losses keep piling up.

(Top photo: Megan Briggs / Getty Images)