MIAMI — Shunned when it came to scheduled national-television appearances and derided as no more than another iteration of the play-in Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra’s team spent the early portion of the season demanding the NBA take notice.

The scoring was off the charts.

The pace was at a heretofore unseen level.

Most teams in the Eastern Conference were looking up in the standings.

Now the league has taken notice.

And now it has gotten real, all too real.

In falling for the fourth time in five games on Saturday night against the Sacramento Kings, the Heat again found an opponent determined to put a pause on their pace.

“If you develop an identity after 20 games, the league scouts you. So they’ll put together a game plan,” Spoelstra said, with his team exiting the loss to the Kings at 14-10 and back in the play-in portion of the East standings. “But if you’re doing something well, then you have to put more effort, more intention, more detail in doing it.

“And that’s what the really good teams figure out. You don’t let teams take you out of what you need to do.”

So, yes, because of their torrid start, the Heat still lead the league in pace, at 105.42, as in possessions per 48 minutes. But over this 1-4 run, the pace is down to 103.80. And amid this three-game losing streak the Heat will take into Tuesday night’s NBA Cup road game against the Orlando Magic at Kia Center, the pace is 100.67, as in 13th in the league — glacial compared to what had been.

“But we knew this was going to happen,” guard Norman Powell said. “We kind of surprised everybody with the pace. And now they’re ready for it. So it’s on us to play a little smarter, knowing that they’re going to be denying and making it tough from our first actions. It’s going to be second or third ball reversals to beat their defenses.”

Saturday night, the Heat were playing with a limited deck, with Tyler Herro, Davion Mitchell and Pelle Larsson — three of the team’s most active players — sidelined by ailments.

The absence of Mitchell, his first of the season, was particularly telling.

“He’s the head of the snake when it comes to pushing our pace in transition,” center Bam Adebayo said.

The slump has the Heat eighth in the NBA in scoring over the past five games and, when looking just at the current three-game losing streak, back in a neighborhood they previously occupied in the scoring race, at 26th in the league over that run.

“I mean, you know people start scouting us and figuring out ways they can shut our water off in transition, because we play so fast,” Adebayo said. “But, for us, it’s really, like I said, moving that ball, limiting our turnovers and getting shots on goal.”

What Powell said can’t happen is abandoning the system that led to the early success. He stressed that the slide has come against some of the league’s best defenses, considering the setbacks in the uneven five-game run included losses to the Detroit Pistons (fourth in defensive net rating), the Magic (sixth) and the Dallas Mavericks (eighth).

“When we started playing these teams, we’ve played the top five, top six defenses in the last couple of games,” Powell said. “You got Dallas, Orlando. And I think they’ve done a good job of denying our first action and things like that.

“So it’s making other guys have to make plays. But I think this has been keying in on, denying our reversals and things like that. And now we’ve got to get to making second and third movements from their denials, back cutting, sacrificing ourselves to open up driving lanes and things like that for the guys that have the ball.”

So, to a degree, back to the drawing board.

“This is the most I’ve seen teams go zone against us,” Adebayo said. “And then obviously when they make a shot, they’re trying to press up so we can’t run in transition. So those two things.

“But we have one of the best coaches in the league. We’ll find a counter at some point. We’ll find a counter and get back to having this fast pace and playing with this type of energy.”