Step aside Dwyane, LeBron. Jimmy Butler just saved Miami Heat with playoff game for the ages | Opinion
Jimmy Butler #JimmyButler
The greatest clutch playoff performance in Miami Heat history. Period. Step aside, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James.
No argument allowed here. Just respect. Debate what’s second.
Put the crown on Jimmy Butler’s head.
Expand this beyond the Heat and basketball. Has the history of professional sports in South Florida ever seen anything quite like the show Butler put on Monday night?
Butler scored 56 points — no typo, 56! — to all but single-handedly lift the No. 8 Heat to the brink of eliminating the No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
It was an all-time Heat playoff record, and his personal career high. It came on 19-for-28 shooting including 15 of 18 from the free-throw line.
It championed a 30-13 run to end it and turn a game-long lead by the Bucks into a 119-114 Heat victory.
Heat legend and lore is readjusted tonight.
It welcomes in Butler to the highest pantheon.
When the Hall of Fame considers him someday, they begin with this game.
If the grandkids ever wonder how great he really was … start here.
The script against Miami was set, right?
Giannis Antetokounmpo returns after a two-game absence to lead the pedigreed Bucks, NBA champions two years ago, to a Game 4 win in Miami that erases the Heat’s 2-1 best-of-7 lead, evens the series and earns back home-court advantage for the No. 1 seed heading back to Beertown.
It is what the TNT analysts said pregame. It is what the bettors thought in anointing Milwaukee a big eight-point road favorite. It made sense, really. Seemed preordained.
Butler did everything he could to flip that script. Playoff Jimmy. Epic Jimmy.
But he couldn’t.
Because he was alone.
The No. 8 seed Heat never had a chance because it was all but five-on-one.
That’s what the script said and the game looked like.
Until the fourth quarter. When Miami led for the first time — Butler leading it all.
Seldom has Butler seemed more alone as a one-man show.
Seldom has one man been enough.
Antetokounmpo scored 26 in his return and Brook Lopez had 36.
It was Milwaukee led end-to-end for the longest time.
The game began with Lopez at the rim blocking Bam Adebayo’s attempted dunk, and Antetokounmpo scoring at the other end. It would not be Lopez’s first rim denial of Adebayo on the night.
At one point Lopez hit a jumper over Kevin Love for an 81-68 Bucks lead and Love threw his arms up in the air in frustration, like, “What can I do?”
Then Butler happened. And kept happening.
These were the crazy NBA playoff trends that hung in play Monday night — the stakes, the huge gulf, historically, between winning and losing Monday:
In the history of seven-game series since 1984, teams with a 3-1 lead have won to advance 170 of 179 times, or 95 percent. Miami’s chunk of that is 13-0 — the Heat has never blown a 3-1 lead.
That’s the tailwind the Heat was playing for.
At 2-2 with a loss? It would be the coin flip you would figure. Leaguewide it’s 156-156 all time at 2-2. Dead even. With Miami it’s 9-7. But none of those 16 games at this points were as a No. 8 seed vs. a No. 1. And with Milwaukee having two of the last three possible encounters at home starting with Game 5 on Wednesday night.
The first quarter was insane. Also, it was a harbinger.
Milwaukee led end-to-end, coming out large with Antetokonmpo back in the lineup. The Bucks had the desperation, down 2-1, and came out with that fire.
And yet Miami withstood all that and only trailed 33-28 after one.
It was because The Greek Freak had a normal-great first quarter, with nine points.
And the Heat got a Playoff Jimmy-great first from Mr. Butler, who had 22 points — including Miami’s last 20 points — on 9-for-10 shooting.
But that’s how the night would go.
Butler against the world.
The plaudits flooded in from all around, including a tweet in all caps from the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiiid … Jimmy’s future Heat teammate, perhaps? (That’s for another column.)
For now Miami is up 3-1, and history is telling us the Heat is 95 percent likely to finish the first-round upset.
But it’s the No. 1 Bucks. It’s Giannis. It’s two of the last three possible games in Milwaukee.
Against all of that, though … it’s Jimmy Butler.
Sounds like a fair fight.
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