With escape room planned, Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler delivers masterclass in leadership

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DENVER ― The weight of a team is never on one person.

That weight is not distributed evenly either.

For the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler absorbs the heft of championship expectations.

He invites the burden, wants the responsibility.

It’s how he pushed and pulled, carried and dragged the Heat to the 2020 NBA Finals, to seven games against Boston in last season’s Eastern Conference finals, to this season’s seven-game victory against the Celtics in the conference finals and to this season’s Finals against the Denver Nuggets.

Butler can’t win the NBA Finals against the Nuggets by himself, but the Heat also can’t win the title with Butler having the performance he did in Denver’s 104-93 victory in Game 1 on Thursday.

He had an unaffecting 13 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. He knows he needs to be better in Game 2 on Sunday in Denver (8 p.m. ET, ABC).

“I just think I’ve got to do a better job of getting the ball, demanding the ball, being more aggressive (at the rim),” Butler said. “That’s just that, and that will change come Game 2. …

“They definitely follow suit whenever I’m aggressive on both sides of the ball. So I have to be the one to come out and kick that off the right way, which I will, and we’ll see where we end up.”

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Jimmy Butler had 13 points in the Heat’s Game 1 defeat against the Nuggets.

Butler took 14 shots (just five at the rim) and didn’t attempt one free throw, even though he entered the Finals taking 9.1 free throws per game through the first three rounds.

It didn’t help that Miami shot 33.3% on 3-pointers, and Caleb Martin was 1-for-7 from the field and Max Strus was 0-for-10, including nine missed 3s.

But Butler isn’t worried.

“I would like to say that I’m never rattled,” he said. “I’m very calm. I’m very consistent in everything that I do, whether it’s before the game, after the game, during the game, and I think when my guys look at me like that, they follow suit in every…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/escape-room-planned-miami-heats-111338052.html?src=rss

Author : USA TODAY Sports

Publish date : 2023-06-04 11:13:38

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