Putting Jimmy Butler’s historic postseason for Heat in perspective: ‘Jimmy gets overlooked’
Jimmy Butler has yet to win an NBA championship. But if he has proven one thing in his first three seasons with the Miami Heat, it’s that he can be the best player on a championship contender.
Just ask Heat veteran and captain Udonis Haslem, who has been on the roster for each of the franchise’s three championships.
“I think a lot of times Jimmy gets overlooked,” Haslem said after the Heat’s season ended in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on Sunday at the hands of the Boston Celtics. “For whatever reason, people feel like there’s a separation between Jimmy and the guys that can really take you to a championship and actually win you championship. I don’t understand that. I think a lot of times, the heart of a champion gets overlooked. I think that’s what people confuse with Jimmy.”
Butler has arguably been the NBA’s best player this postseason, averaging 27.4 points on 50.6 percent shooting from the field, 7.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.1 steals in this year’s playoffs. The only players in NBA history to average at least 27 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals while shooting better than 50 percent from the field during a playoff run are Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Kawhi Leonard and now Butler.
As the NBA Finals between the Celtics and Golden State Warriors open Thursday:
▪ Butler ranks first this postseason in FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR (Robust Algorithm (using) Player Tracking (and) On/Off Ratings) metric.
▪ Butler leads the NBA this postseason in win shares per 48 minutes, which is an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 minutes.
▪ Butler ranks first this postseason in box plus/minus, which is a box score estimate of the points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player.
▪ Butler leads the NBA this postseason in value over replacement player, which is a box score estimate of the points per 100 team possessions that a player contributed above a replacement-level player prorated to an 82-game season.
▪ The Heat outscored opponents by 7.7 points per 100 possessions with Butler on the court this postseason. With Butler not playing, playoff opponents outscored the Heat by four points per 100 possessions.
“With the heart and grit that Jimmy has, man, he gets everybody to feel like that and play like that,” Haslem continued. “Even if you’re not as tough as Jimmy and even if you’re not as aggressive as Jimmy. If you believe that you’re as tough as Jimmy, if you believe that you’re aggressive as Jimmy, then you see you get the most out of everybody. I think that was the step that Jimmy took as far as getting everybody to believe. It wasn’t just about his numbers. His numbers were insane, his numbers were great. But I think Jimmy got everybody to really believe. Once everybody believed, they started to follow.”
Butler, 32, became the first Heat player in franchise history to score 40 points or more in four different games during a single postseason. That list includes a 47-point performance to set a playoff career-high in a Game 6 win during the East finals to force a Game 7, which also marked the seventh-most points scored by a player in an elimination game in NBA history.
Even against the Celtics’ elite defense and with Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart defending him for most of the conference finals, Butler thrived.
Butler scored 1.03 points per possession over 19.1 possessions per game against the Celtics in the half court in the East finals, according to Synergy Sports, way up from the 0.76 points per possession that Boston allowed on all other half-court possessions. And according to NBA tracking stats, Butler totaled an efficient 31 points on 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) shooting from the field in the 124 possessions that Smart spent as his primary defender during the series.
“It’s one of the great performances of an elite competitor,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Butler’s play in the conference finals. “Jimmy has this competitive will that is so unique that is a talent unto itself. Jimmy is a great basketball player. He’s a world-class competitor and he knows how to win basketball games. That’s a talent. And for young players coming into the league, I think that’s a missing talent or skill. It becomes about all the other skills. But that’s what makes Jimmy so unique as a world-class player. He just knows how to compete to win and to compete to not let you lose. That’s an incredible DNA that he has inside of him.”
But after the Heat’s season ended five wins short of a championship, all Butler could think about is what he didn’t do.
Dealing with right knee inflammation, Butler scored just 27 points on 10-of-40 (25 percent) shooting from the field over Games 3, 4 and 5 of the East finals. He also missed a three-pointer that would have put the Heat ahead by one point in the final seconds of its season-ending loss on Sunday.
“Not good enough. I didn’t do my job,” Butler said of his play this postseason. “Stats don’t mean anything, as I say over and over again. The Boston Celtics did what they came out here to do in this series. I learned that I have to be better, and I will be better. Get back to the lab and have an opportunity to work out with these guys over the summer, and we’ll come back better than ever.”
Butler has now been historically great in two of the last three playoffs with the Heat. He became just the second player in NBA history to lead his team outright in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in a Finals series when the Heat finished two wins short of a championship in 2020 and then delivered another strong statement this year.
“You can put him in that category of superstars,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said of what Butler proved in this year’s playoffs. “To me, he’s one of the best two-way guys in the league, hands down.”
Butler is under contract with the Heat through the 2025-26 season when he’ll be 36 years old. It’s fair to question how long he can continue producing at this high of a level as he approaches his mid-30s.
But Butler is confident he can help lead the Heat deep into the playoffs for the third time in four seasons next year. This time, he hopes it ends with his first NBA title.
“It sucks because you don’t know who is going to be on the roster any given year, you know what I’m saying,” Butler said. “... We had enough. Next year, we will have enough and we’re going to be right back in the same situation, and we’re going to get it done.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 10:13 AM.
