MIAMI – Apparently it’s going to take a little more than a four-day respite and Stan Van Gundy’s bullet-point manifesto distributed among Pistons players to rectify their defensive deficiencies.

The Pistons dropped their second straight game and allowed another opponent to blow past 100 points in the process. Miami scored more than 25 points in every quarter, hit half of its shots from the 3-point line and pulled away in the fourth quarter to win 116-103.

Yeah, it was an issue that the Pistons were limited to 12 fourth-quarter points. Stan Van Gundy mused afterward that perhaps teams have figured something out about defending the staple of their late-game attack, Reggie Jackson’s pick-and-roll smorgasbord.

But they’re not going to win nearly enough games to pull out of the hole their 21-26 record has dug if they’re going to continue to allow 116 points.

“There was not a good enough effort defensively, plain and simple,” Jon Leuer said. “I look at myself in the mirror and I didn’t do a good enough job. Got beat a couple of times. But defense is always about five guys being tied on a string and we have to do a better job of that. It’s on us as players to correct that and have much better effort defensively.”

Miami shot 53 percent for the game, but was over 60 percent for the first 33 minutes and well above 50 percent from the 3-point arc until going just 3 of 10 in the fourth quarter.

“We gave up 116 points and they killed us,” Van Gundy said. “The game was 10 more threes for them and 11 more free throws made. That’s the ballgame. We had trouble playing guys off the dribble, which created some threes. But they hit a lot of contested ones, too.”

The Pistons matched Miami – hottest team in the East, carrying a six-game winning streak into the game – for all of three quarters, scoring 33, 27 and 31 to take a 91-90 lead into the fourth. Andre Drummond (17 points, 20 boards) was dominant, again winning his matchup with Hassan Whiteside cleanly, and if Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (2 of 11 shooting) hadn’t still shown signs of rust after returning earlier in the week following a nearly two-week absence with a shoulder injury, the Pistons might well have survived their leaky defense.

But there was no denial or wallowing in “what ifs” in their locker room. All around, they understood their defense must improve – quickly and markedly.

“Very disappointing,” said Jackson, who scored 24 points and hit 10 of 17 shots. “That’s been our Achilles. We’ve gotten better at finding a way to get the ball moving and finding a way to score, but defensively we still haven’t figured it out.”

“It’s our calling card. We’ve got to be good defensively,” Ish Smith said. “We have to be. I don’t want to take anything away from them. They’re playing some great basketball – not just good, some great basketball. But defensively, that has to be our calling card.”

The Pistons took Tuesday off after playing the East’s busiest schedule to that point, regrouped for individual workouts on Wednesday and then got back into their practice routine Thursday and Friday. Van Gundy passed out sheets with points of emphasis, heavy on defense, and signs were encouraging in practices with a greater focus on communication and fundamentals. But if there were any signs of a turnaround launched Saturday night, they were well disguised.

“We’re able to get stops and run, that’s what we are. That’s what we do,” Smith said. “It’s a little bit surprising tonight because Coach harped on it and defensively we were really, really good in those practices.”

Smith’s bench unit endured its second straight tough outing. After allowing Sacramento 52 points off its bench in the previous game, the Pistons saw Miami’s bench combine for 46 points. Wayne Ellington scored 19, James Johnson 18.

“I take it upon myself that when we come in on the second team, I want to take our team to another level,” Smith said. “When we come in, our plus/minus has to be really, really good. We never got our team that push.”

The game turned in the fourth quarter after Jon Leuer’s layup with 8:05 left pulled the Pistons within a point. The Pistons went scoreless for three minutes spanning five possessions. That constituted the greatest scoring drought for either side all night. A team capable of stringing stops together would’ve been able to withstand such a dry spell, but not the Pistons – not now, not the way they’ve been wobbled defensively for the past six weeks as they’ve gone from the No. 2 defense in the league to near the bottom.

“I don’t think our offense is the problem,” Leuer said. “It’s a matter of us – collectively, each guy individually – looking at himself in the mirror. I put responsibility on myself to be better because I wasn’t good enough tonight.”