Heat’s Jimmy Butler continues post-All-Star break surge to draw Dwyane Wade comparison
During his pregame session with reporters in Detroit on Tuesday, Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was asked whether he wants star Jimmy Butler to look for his own shot more often despite his career-best efficiency this season.
“We’re both abundantly on the same page about his assertiveness and aggressiveness, and the whole team is, as well,” Spoelstra answered. “We don’t want him to defer at all. He’s ridiculously efficient, and he’s been getting more efficient every single year.
“So many of his nights look like a misprint in the boxscore when he’s able to score 30-plus points on less than 15 shot attempts. He’s done that several times this year. I think that should be a case study for young players coming into this league. It’s not about volume. It’s about your impact on winning and you don’t need to take 22 shots to score and really dominate offensively the way he’s able to.”
Just hours later, Butler went out and put together another ultra-efficient performance. He recorded 27 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field and 9-of-11 shooting from the foul line, eight rebounds, eight assists and four steals to lead the Heat to a 118-105 win over the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night to open a three-game trip as it makes one final push to avoid the play-in tournament.
But Butler went about it in a unique way, totaling 25 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field and 7-of-8 shooting from the foul line in the second half after scoring just two points on 0-of-1 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting from the foul line in the first half. It’s tied for the 12th-most points he has scored in a single half during his NBA career.
Most of Butler’s production Tuesday came in an 18-point fourth quarter. It’s tied for the third-most points Butler, 33, has scored in a single fourth quarter during his NBA career and it’s the most points he has scored in a single fourth quarter as a member of the Heat.
Zoom in even closer and more than half of Butler’s points came in the final minutes of Tuesday’s game after the Pistons led by three points with 5:36 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Heat closed the game on a 22-6 run on its way to the win over the team with the NBA’s worst record, as Butler scored 16 of the Heat’s 22 points during this game-deciding run on 6-of-6 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 shooting from the foul line.
“If you can’t appreciate how many different things he does to impact winning, you’re just really not paying attention to all the aspects of the game,” Spoelstra said of Butler, with the Heat continuing its final trip of the regular season on Thursday against the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center (7:30 p.m., TNT). “He does it as a legit two-way player. He does it on both ends of the court.
“He opened up guarding [Jaden] Ivey, but then throughout the course of the game he was guarding one through five. Then offensively in the first half, we were rolling and a lot of other guys were going and he’s not coming in at halftime barking and saying, ‘I need more touches, I need more shots.’ He’s happy for Gabe [Vincent], he’s happy for Max [Strus], he’s happy for Kevin [Love] getting into a great groove. He understands intellectually how important that is for those guys to have confidence and to get some rhythm. So he’s the epitome of being a chess player of manipulating the game and helping guys be in a great position to play well.”
With just three games left on the Heat’s regular-season schedule, Butler’s greatness continues to provide hope ahead of the playoffs despite Miami’s frustrating up-and-down season. In 19 games since the All-Star break, Butler is averaging 25.6 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game while shooting an incredibly efficient 61 percent shooting from the field, 12 of 24 (50 percent) from three-point range and 84.9 percent from the free-throw line on 10.5 foul shots per game.
Of the 23 players around the NBA who are averaging 25 or more points per game since the break, Butler and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo are the only two doing it on better than 60 percent shooting from the field.
In fact, the advanced metrics say Butler has been among the NBA’s best players during the entire season as he continues to make a strong case to be on an All-NBA team for the third time in the last four seasons. He entered Wednesday with the NBA’s fifth-best estimated plus-minus and ranked second in win shares per 48 minutes behind only MVP front-runner Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets.
“Jimmy is just a really good winning basketball player,” Spoelstra said. “It’s really amazing how efficient he can be just constantly night after night scoring in the upper 20s or 30s and only have 12 to 15 shots and almost have a triple-double [Tuesday]. He just did so many winning things going down the stretch.
“He really reminds me of somebody when he gets in that mode down the stretch. I am not going to say who that is. I did mention it to him. I’ll let you guys figure that out.”
Spoelstra wouldn’t reveal who he was referring to, but Butler appeared to confirm after Tuesday’s game that Spoelstra compared his late-game greatness to Heat icon Dwyane Wade’s fourth-quarter brilliance.
“It’s like a blessing and a curse because he is without a doubt one of the greats, as you see the news of him being in the Hall of Fame,” Butler said of being compared to Wade, who will enter the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in a few months as part of the 2023 class. “But then it’s like every time you do anything, that’s who you get compared to. And I love him to death. But my goodness, it’s hard to be compared to him every step of the way. But like I said, it is a blessing, as well.”
Despite Butler’s incredible play, the Heat is just 10-10 since the All-Star break. Miami’s offense has been mediocre (17th-ranked offensive rating in the NBA) and the defense has been bad (25th-ranked defensive rating in the NBA) during this stretch.
Those issues have the Heat in seventh place in the Eastern Conference and it will need a lot to go its way in the final days of the regular season to avoid the play-in tournament that features the seventh through 10th-place teams in each conference. Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report gives Miami only a 20.7 percent chance of finishing with a top-six seed entering Wednesday’s slate of games.
“I don’t pay attention,” Butler said of the playoff and play-in race. “Wherever we end up is wherever we end up. We’re supposed to win and I think we need to do a better job of working on ourselves and let them worry about them. Wherever we end up, we’re happy with and we’re going to win.”
As long as Butler is playing at this level, the Heat at least has a chance to salvage a season that has yet to meet expectations.
“He’s just a really good basketball player and I’m grateful he’s on our side,” Spoelstra said.
This story was originally published April 5, 2023 at 11:27 AM.
