Inside The Heat

Jimmy Butler Was Last Eastern Conference Player In NBA Finals To Have A Game Like Jaylen Brown Did In Game 3

Shandel Richardson|
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

How good was Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown in Wednesday's 106-99 victory against the Dallas Mavericks in Game 3 of the NBA Finals?

You have to go back nearly four years to find another Eastern Conference player to have a similar performance at this stage. Brown finished with 30 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in the Celtics 106-99 victory against the Dallas Mavericks. The win puts them ahead 3-0 in the series, which all but assures them the 18th title in franchise history.

According to StatMuse, Brown is among the last four players from the East to have at least a 30-8-8 stat line in the Finals. The others were LeBron James, Michael Jordan and ... Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler. Pretty good company.

Butler was the last to accomplishment the feat when he had a monster effort in Game 3 of the 2020 Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. He ended with 40 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds in a 115-104 victory.

"How else do you say it other than Jimmy F'ing Butler?" Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game. "This is what he wanted; this is what we wanted. It's really hard to analyze or describe Jimmy, until you actually feel him between the four lines. He is a supreme, elite competitor."

Brown is now in the position to become the second in the group to win a title after the performance. Butler lost to the Lakers in six games. So did James, who fell to the Golden State Warriors despite having 51 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in Game 1.

In 1997, Jordan had 38 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists in Game 2 against the Utah Jazz. The Chicago Bulls won the series in six games.

Shandel Richardsonis the publisher of Inside The Heat. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com

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Shandel Richardson
SHANDEL RICHARDSON

Shandel has covered the NBA since 2010, with previous stops at The Athletic and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has covered six NBA Finals, one Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball tournament. He has also been a beat writer for the Miami Hurricanes and contributed on every major beat in South Florida since 2003, including the Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins. He can also be read in the Sportsbook Review for gambling coverage from around the NBA. A native of Bloomington, Illinois, Shandel attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He's also worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star. TWITTER: @ShandelRich EMAIL: shandelrich@gmail.com You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here Follow all of our Miami Heat coverage on Facebook here