Who’s in trouble now? Jimmy Butler and Heat finally frustrated LeBron in Game 3 of Finals
Jimmy Butler had just delivered the dagger in a truly legendary NBA Finals performance Sunday and he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity at a little bit of revenge on LeBron James with the Miami Heat headed toward a critical 115-104 win in Game 3.
The Los Angeles Lakers called a timeout with 1:13 left and the Heat ahead 109-100, and James trudged to the Lakers’ bench. He couldn’t avoid crossing paths with Butler.
“You’re in trouble!” the All-Star wing yelled to James as the point forward walked past him and then Butler walked by a row of teammates with outstretched hands waiting for high fives. “They’re in trouble!” he shouted as he slapped each hand. “They’re in trouble!”
First of all, Butler wanted to clarify what happened in this moment Sunday. At the end of the first quarter, Los Angeles forward Kyle Kuzma hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to cut Miami’s lead to 26-23 despite 10 first-quarter turnovers by the Lakers. James turned toward midcourt and saw rookie wing Tyler Herro, who went 1 for 8 in the quarter, and shouted to him, “You’re in trouble!” Butler stepped in between the two and started jawing at James, although cameras didn’t pick up an angle well suited for amateur lip-readers.
Whatever Butler said, he backed it up the rest of the way. His final line put him in truly elite company — the sort only James and a handful of others can sniff. The wing scored 40 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and handed out 13 assists for only the third 40-point triple-double in Finals history, joining James and former Lakers point guard Jerry West. Butler is the first to do it in a victory and he did it by outplaying James in a way no one ever has.
For the first time in history, a single player topped James in points, rebounds and assists in an NBA playoff game.
At the end of the first, James could smell a sweep and a chance to win the championship by Tuesday. Butler assured the 2020 NBA Finals will at least go to five games by cutting Los Angeles’ series lead to 2-1, even with guard Goran Dragic and All-Star post player Bam Adebayo missing the last two games for the Heat because of injuries.
“That’s competition at its finest,” Butler said Sunday. “LeBron has got the best of me way too many times. I respect the guy for it, but this is a different time now, a different group of guys that I have around me and we are here to win. We are here to compete, but we’re not going to lay down. We’re going to fight back in this thing, even it up 2-2.”
James finished Game 3 with 25 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and eight turnovers. Anthony Davis managed just 15 points, five rebounds, three assists and five turnovers. Butler singlehandedly matched the superstar tandem in scoring 40-40, topped them it assists 13-11 and only lost the rebounding battle 15-11. He also matched the power forwards with two steals and two blocks, and had eight fewer turnovers despite playing 45 minutes. He even coaxed James into a pair of travels in the fourth quarter while working as the primary defender.
At least Sunday, Butler got the last laugh against James.
“Love it. Love it,” James said Sunday. “One of the best competitors we have in our game. We love that opportunity. For me personally, I don’t know how many more opportunities I’m going to have, so to be able to go against a fierce competitor like that is something I’ll look back on when I’m done playing. I’ll miss those moments.”
Even after Butler’s historic performance, the Lakers are still in control of the series and could wrap it up by Friday. They just need to win two of the next five games, and there’s no guarantee Dragic or Adebayo, two of the Heat’s three best players, will return for Game 4 or at any point in this championship series.
James said he’s “not concerned” after Miami clawed back into the series, but he did walk off the court in the final seconds as the clock ticked toward zero, leaving his Lakers teammates to inbound the ball with him already headed to the locker room. When asked whether he walked off because he was frustrated or because he thought time had expired, James simply said, “Both.”
For the first time in the Finals, James had reason to be frustrated.
“It means nothing. We stay focused on ourselves. That’s how we got here, but we’re just settling down. I think it’s a lot of bright lights, it’s a big stage for almost everybody,” Butler said. “We’re coming to realize that we belong here. We’re a really good team and we can win, as we have shown tonight, if we play basketball the right way, if we do what we say we’re going to do, so everybody is just becoming more and more comfortable as the days go by.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
