The story behind Jimmy Butler’s statement-making jersey move. And a look back at Heat’s loss
The story of Jimmy Butler’s jersey request is one of compromise and collaboration.
While the NBA denied Butler’s request to play with a blank nameplate on his jersey, the Miami Heat’s All-Star wing was still able to make a statement in his own way.
As a symbol of unity with all impacted by social injustice, Butler initially took the court for Saturday’s seeding opener against the Denver Nuggets with a jersey that did not include his name before he was required by the officiating crew to change into a jersey that did include his name prior to tipoff.
All parties involved, including the Heat and NBA, were aware of Butler’s pregame plan. The league stuck by its ruling, but Butler stuck by the statement he wanted to make.
“We have the best leadership in professional sports between [NBA commissioner] Adam Silver and [National Basketball Players Association executive director] Michele Roberts,” Butler’s agent Bernie Lee said to the Miami Herald in advance of Tuesday’s game between the Heat and Boston Celtics at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista. “For a few weeks leading into the first seeding game, we spoke about Jimmy’s choice often and the outcome you saw was the product of those conversations.
“While it’s not exactly what anyone wanted at the outset, the outcome was reflective of the times and how adaptable everyone has to be. I think Jimmy was provided a platform and opportunity to make a statement that was very important to him and powerful.”
Butler is the lone player on the Heat’s 17-man roster who opted not to wear a social justice message on his jersey because his hope was to play with only the No. 22 on the back. He explained his jersey request in July by saying, “It’s going back to who I was. If I wasn’t who I was today, I’m no different than anybody else of color.”
In each of the Heat’s first two seeding games, Butler played with his last name on the bottom of his number. He didn’t attempt to take the court with a nameless jersey in the Heat’s second seeding game Monday against the Toronto Raptors.
“Jimmy’s entire life is reflective of being a part of a larger group,” Lee said. “It’s something I have a lot of respect for.”
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
As for NBA referee David Guthrie telling a pool reporter following Monday’s Heat loss to the Toronto Raptors that a fourth-quarter flagrant foul on Kelly Olynyk shouldn’t have been called, coach Erik Spoelstra called the officiating mistake “really unfortunate” but refused to blame the defeat on that call.
The Flagrant 1 call was made on Olynyk with 6:56 to play, when he swiped at the ball and appeared to inadvertently glance Toronto guard Kyle Lowry’s face. The Raptors ended up scoring four points on the possession, turning a 92-92 tie into a 96-92 lead.
“Your first reaction, obviously you don’t want anybody getting poked in the eye,” Spoelstra said of the play before Tuesday’s matchup against the Celtics. “But we see the screen across from us, and you could see that that was just a play on the ball, a swipe toward the ball, and the contact was incidental, from our standpoint. And I didn’t understand it in once they saw the replay how they could view it that way. Look, we still had opportunities, so I’m not going to pin it on that.”
The Heat never led the rest of the way, with Toronto shooting 20 more free throws than Miami in the contest.
“When I see player-development coaches during the offseason teaching that, not on our staff, not on other staffs, just player-development coaches, personal trainers. You see that that’s part of their development of trickery,” Spoelstra said Tuesday of players exaggerating contact to get foul calls. “But in the playoffs, when it really matters, those typically are not called that way. And it was unfortunate that that was the whistle last night. But, regardless, we had an opportunity many times, regardless of how the game was officiated.
“Even that flagrant foul, yes that was a minor turning point, four-point swing, but we still had opportunities down the stretch to figure it out an try to win it, to get the win, and we didn’t. Toronto did.”
▪ The Heat’s 45 three-point shot attempts in Monday’s loss to the Raptors went down as the second-most threes Miami has taken in a game in franchise history. Miami shot 14 of 45 from deep against Toronto.
The Heat missed a lot of open threes against the Raptors, too.
Miami shot a combined 11 of 37 (29.7 percent) on open and wide open threes against Toronto, according to NBA Advanced Stats. For the season, the Heat entered Tuesday shooting 39.4 percent on those shots.
“Overall, the first half, feel like we had a lot of good open shots, we just couldn’t make the shots,” Heat guard Goran Dragic said following Monday’s game. “That kind of affected our defense. We were thinking too much. And from there on, we struggled.”
The most threes the Heat has ever attempted in a game is 49 in a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Feb. 9 earlier this season.
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 12:08 PM.
