Eastern Conference Finals: Jimmy Butler Lives For These Moments
Some have called him a “bad teammate” over the years and someone that can be a “negative” in a team’s locker room, but everywhere Jimmy Butler has been, he has helped his team win.
He took the Chicago Bulls to the playoffs five of the seven seasons he spent with them, he took the Minnesota Timberwolves to the postseason during the 2017-18 season, he was one win away from taking the Philadelphia 76ers to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2019 and now, Butler has led the Miami Heat back to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second-time in the last three seasons.
Jimmy Butler is one of the best leaders in the NBA and what he has done in the postseason this year is just remarkable.
Averaging 29.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.3 steals and shooting 53.5% from the floor through 11 playoff games this year, the All-Star wing is putting the Heat in a great position to contend for a title.
On Tuesday in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, Butler continued his hot play and elevated Miami to a 118-107 victory and a 1-0 series lead, putting them three wins away from getting back to the NBA Finals.
In this game, Butler scored 41 total points on 12-19 shooting, 17-18 from the free-throw line, and he also finished with 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals and 3 blocks.
With his 40-5-5-4 game, Butler joined LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Paul Pierce, Allen Iverson, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, and Larry Bird as the only other players in NBA Playoff history to put up such numbers in a single game.
During the third quarter of Game 1, Jimmy Butler scored 17 points on 4-5 shooting, 9-10 from the free-throw line. Boston as a team in this quarter scored 14 total points on 2-15 shooting, 10-13 from the free-throw line.
“Jimmy Butler is an elite competitor,” Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game. “There's a lot of guys in this league that are playing basketball. He's competing to win. That's a totally different thing and he does that as well as anybody in this league.”
Playing the game and playing the game to win are two completely different mentalities in the NBA and Spoelstra is spot on with stating that Butler is “competing to win.”
Compared to the regular season, his numbers are way up and Butler seems to be playing with a different aggressiveness and mindset. He is not settling for shots and instead, the All-Star is “head hunting” and looking to break down his opponent’s defense, no matter who is guarding him.
Perhaps the best attribute that Butler has displayed time and time again in these playoffs is his ability to put the team first and simply lead by example out there on the basketball court instead of constantly leading with emotions like others in the league.
Jimmy Butler had a great third quarter in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Boston, as mentioned above, but the entire Miami Heat team had a great third quarter and when talking about this moment in the game when Butler went on a scoring tear, he did not make everything about himself.
“More than anything, it just shows us what we are capable of whenever we worry about getting stops, getting into the open floor, getting to the free throw line, all those good things,” Butler said. “It just reminds me, we can do it. I see it on this piece of paper. I lived it. So I expect us to do that every quarter from here on out.”
41 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 blocks and 3 steals.
Plenty of players would go up to the podium after the game and talk about what they did well and how they were able to get going.
Not Butler though.
He knows what he did in Game 1, but more importantly, he knows what is at stake and he is only focused on just the number “seven” now – the amount of wins it will take for the Heat to win a title.
Personal accolades are great and all, but for Jimmy Butler, team success matters more than anything else and his leadership on the floor in these playoffs has been unmatched by any other player in the league.
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