After leading Heat past 76ers and to East finals, Butler says: ‘I love being here in Miami’
Jimmy Butler enjoyed himself Thursday night.
Butler led the Miami Heat to the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in his three seasons with the franchise. In the process, Butler ended the season of the team that chose not to keep him in 2019 and instead helped facilitate a sign-and-trade deal to get him to the Heat.
So Butler waved goodbye to the Philadelphia crowd in the final minutes of their season on Thursday, and then was captured by a WPLG camera yelling, “Tobias Harris over me?” as he walked off the court and into the locker room in reference to the 76ers’ decision to re-sign Harris over him three years ago.
“I’m not complaining. I love being here in Miami,” Butler, 32, said after eliminating his former team. “I love the group of guys that we have and I’m not changing anything that happened. I’m here for a reason. We’re going to ride this wave and take it back to the 305, get ready for the next round and work our way toward this championship.”
The Heat opens the East finals on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. at FTX Arena against the winner of the series between the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. With a 3-2 lead in the series, the Bucks have a chance to close out the Celtics in Game 6 on Friday night in Milwaukee.
The rest of the East finals schedule looks like this: Game 2 on Thursday at FTX Arena at 8:30 p.m., Game 3 on May 21 on the road at 8:30 p.m., Game 4 on May 23 on the road at 8:30 p.m., Game 5 on May 25 at FTX Arena at 8:30 p.m., Game 6 on May 27 on the road at 8:30 p.m., and Game 7 on May 29 at FTX Arena at 8:30 p.m.
“I think he’s one of the ultimate competitors in this profession,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Butler. “So I think a lot of things get lost in translation. I think as this league sometimes gets younger, I think it ends up being about some things that are not about winning.
“He competes on both ends, he’s an extremely efficient offensive player. When his only focus is just about driving a team to win, all the other things just are irrelevant that a lot of players and teams get caught up in. He’s not caught up in any of that stuff. It’s just about doing whatever it takes to win the game.”
Butler has arguably been the NBA’s best player this postseason, averaging 28.7 points while shooting 52.5 percent from the field, 7.6 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 2.1 steals through the first two rounds of the playoffs.
Only six players in NBA history — Nikola Jokic, LeBron James, Alex English, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and Giannis Antetokounmpo — have averaged at least 25 points, seven rebounds and five assists while shooting 52 percent or better from the field during an entire playoff run. Butler is on track to join that list.
“I didn’t know how good Jimmy was until I got here,” said Heat forward P.J. Tucker, who won an NBA championship with the Bucks last season. “He’s showing me more than I ever thought. His heart, how he’s never scared of the moment and that in itself is a talent. Because I’ve played with guys that are really good, but when they get in those big moments, they shy away and they don’t want it. And he wants every part of it, every moment. He’s not scared at all and that fuels us.”
But Butler pointed to the confidence that the rest of the Heat group has in him as his fuel.
“I think the confidence that my teammates and my coaches put in me, it’s a lot,” Butler said. “They really be hyping me up out there and I just go play. I’ll try everything in my power to make sure that we win, whether it’s getting stops or an offensive rebound or making a shot or making the right pass. But my coaches, the organization and for sure my teammates, they just trust me with everything.”
Butler’s former teams are all out of the playoffs.
The Chicago Bulls made the playoffs for the first time since they traded Butler in the summer of 2017 this season, but lost in the first round.
Up until this season, the only time the Minnesota Timberwolves had qualified for the playoffs in the previous 17 seasons was in 2017-18 when Butler was on the roster. The Timberwolves made it back to the playoffs this season, but were eliminated in the first round.
In Butler’s one season with the 76ers in 2018-19, they finished one win away from advancing to the East finals. Instead, the 76ers have now not made the East finals since 2001.
“I won’t sit here and say I didn’t wish he was my teammate,” 76ers All-Star center Joel Embiid said of Butler following Thursday’s season-ending loss to the Heat. “I still don’t know how we let him go. But I wish I could have gone to battle with him still. It is what it is.”
Butler admitted there was a time he thought he would stick with the 76ers, but “then some things happened.”
The rest is history for Butler and the Heat.
“Now I’m where I belong,” Butler said. “I guess where I should have been a long time ago. A place where I’m welcome. I’m so grateful that coach Pat [Riley] believed in me, coach Spo and then they were just like, ‘Yo. Just go. Figure out a way to get us to where we want to go.’ I’m on my way to doing that. I’m trying to tell y’all, I cannot do that without these guys on this roster. They believe in me, I believe in them and that’s what works.”
