The irony of Jimmy Butler’s greatness: ‘He’s actually a really soft player’

[ad_1]

With just over a minute remaining and the Miami Heat up seven in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, Jimmy Butler rose up and rattled home a dagger 3-pointer to officially bury the Boston Celtics. 

“Gooooooooood!” TNT’s Kevin Harlan belted out. “Jimmy Frickin’ Butler!”

Jimmy. Fricken. Butler.

It was one of the great calls by one of the great play-by-play voices punctuating yet another breathtaking moment delivered by one of the greatest playoff performers of a generation. There aren’t three better words, though I’ll do my best to come up with a handful more, to illustrate what Butler turns into come playoff time. The guy is something else. 

Butler, who’s now averaging 31.5 points per game over Miami’s magical postseason run, did it again on Wednesday, becoming the first player in NBA history to record at least 35 points, six assists and six steals in a conference finals game, and just the sixth to do it in any playoff game. 

After the game, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was asked, effectively, to quantify the belief that Butler breathes into an eighth-seeded Miami team that absolutely nobody picked to even get out of the first round, let alone be up 1-0 after stealing home-court in the conference finals. 

“You can’t quantify it,” Spoelstra said. “There’s no analytic to it. Just the feeling of stability in the locker room. … There’s just a settling effect that is impossible to quantify.” 

In some sense, this is what we’re all trying to do. Quantify a player who seems impossible, for whatever reason, to fully appreciate until he hits you across the face with his playoff production. And even then it doesn’t necessarily feel right to put his name in the same sentence as the game’s true giants. Why not?

“A lot of people are asking themselves that same question,” a Western Conference scout laughed when I asked him what it is about Butler’s game that is still catching us off guard, even as we’ve seen the same postseason movie play out time and again. “But the numbers are the numbers, man. He’s a winner. You can’t argue with the…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/the-irony-of-jimmy-butlers-greatness-hes-actually-a-really-soft-player/

Author : Brad Botkin

Publish date : 2023-05-18 18:13:27

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.