HIS team was down by eight at halftime, and Miami coach Erik Spoelstra went into the locker room ready to deliver a big speech.
Turns out, one wasn’t needed. Jimmy Butler decided to let his play do the talking.
Butler scored 27 of his 41 points in the second half, and a huge third quarter by the Heat carried them to a 118-107 win over the short-handed Boston Celtics 118-107 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on May 18 (PH time).
“Jimmy Butler is an elite competitor,” Spoelstra said. “There’s a lot of guys in this league that are playing basketball. He’s competing to win. That’s a totally different thing and he does that as well as anybody in this league.”
Tyler Herro scored 18 and Gabe Vincent added 17 for the Heat, who outscored Boston 39-14 in the third quarter. Butler had 17 alone in the third, outscoring the Celtics by himself over those 12 minutes.
Boston shot 2 for 15 in that third quarter.
“We won three quarters other than that, but obviously that one is going to stand out,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said. “We semi-bounced back in the fourth and started to play well again and matched their physicality, but 39-14 on 2-for-15 is tough to overcome.”
Along with the 41 points, the rest of Butler’s line: nine rebounds, five assists, four steals and three blocked shots. Since the NBA started charting all those stat categories, only five other players—Anthony Davis, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Harden (who did it twice)—had all those numbers in a single game. None happened in a playoff game, until now.
“I continued to play basketball the right way: Shoot the ball when I’m open, attack, hit the open guy,” Butler said. “Honestly, it was a team effort.” Game 2 is on May 20. (AP)