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CLEMSON — If an 11-1 start to the season highlighted the best aspects of the pieces Brad Brownell has assembled, such as maturity and shot-making, the points Clemson allowed Miami to score on Jan. 3 stripped off some of that shine.

“The thing I’ve fought this team with occasionally is we have a lot of good offensive players who are probably more offensive-minded than defensive-minded,” Brownell said after a 95-82 loss in Coral Gables, Fla.

“Sometimes that can work against us, where we are not as bothered being scored upon as some of my other teams. Because we think we can outscore them.”

A coach who could have little complaint about his team in non-conference play aired a few grievances after the Canes hit 21 of 28 from the floor in the second half, including 18 of their last 22 shots.

It was, Brownell said, possibly the worst defensive performance he’d overseen in his coaching career. It was the first time this season, he said, where the Tigers seemed to totally lose composure.

A troubling development, given No. 16 Clemson (11-2, 1-1 ACC) turns around after a Wednesday night game and tips at noon Saturday with No. 8 North Carolina. Miami is the ACC’s top-scoring team at 85.5 points per game, but the Tar Heels arrive at Littlejohn Coliseum averaging 85 points an outing.

Clemson’s 82 points — almost exactly at the Tigers’ season average — should have been enough to win a game at Miami. It had been sufficient.

Until this week.

“Just one of the few times this year where we just kind of got out of sync and lost our flow on both ends in the second half,” Brownell said. “So I gotta do a better job with my team.”

Brownell didn’t call out any players by name for a lack of defensive effort, but it’s not hard to understand why this is a more offensively oriented team.

Syracuse transfer Joe Girard, who played in a zone scheme for four years, came to Clemson to work on his man-to-man defense.

Looking back on PJ Hall’s injuries and a blown 2022 offseason, Brownell has said he wished his star center could have drilled more on his defensive skill set. Hall has had moments when foul trouble bites him.

Brownell has also been open about point guard Chase Hunter’s journey, particularly early in his career, placing too much pressure on his point totals. And now as someone who has to learn to play alongside a scorer in Girard.

And the tall-but-slight wing Chauncey Wiggins, a 6-foot-10 sophomore, obviously has room to grow in his physicality.

It’s a lineup that has, in better efforts, been potent offensively and more than serviceable defensively. But a defensive-minded coach presides over a team that has slipped back to ninth in the ACC in scoring defense, allowing 71.2 points per contest. He’s admittedly fighting some against his team’s natural impulses.

Brownell confronted his team during practice on the day before the Miami loss, criticizing their intensity on the defensive end. He confronted Hall, specifically, during the Miami game for not being willing enough to bang in the paint on the offensive end and add a physical element to the game.

“He needed to fight to get lower and do some more things,” Brownell said. “We just didn’t have a lot of grit and toughness and staying power in the game. We did not get the game grinding enough, probably, at times.”

Clemson will have to quickly apply these lessons, because UNC (10-3, 2-0 ACC) is led by the ACC’s top scorer, guard RJ Davis (21.1 ppg), and one of the conference’s best post players in Armando Bacot (14.9 ppg, 10.8 rpg).

UNC has three losses, but those came to brand-name programs Villanova, UConn, and Kentucky. The Tar Heels just went to Pittsburgh — where the Tigers picked up their first ACC win — and beat the Panthers by 13.

Clemson believes it has the firepower to compete with the likes of UNC this season, but the loss at Miami provided a reminder of what exactly winning in the ACC will take. Even when Brownell conceded his team contested many of the Canes’ makes in a torrid shooting effort, it didn’t serve as an excuse.

“The higher levels you play, you get to the ACC, you’re gonna deal with guys that are shot-makers,” Brownell said. “Usually, the guarded shots don’t get you beat. It’s the easy baskets, the open ones, and we gave up plenty of those, too.”