Jimmy Butler

HOUSTON — Jimmy Butler left the court of the FTX Arena wondering what-if. The Miami Heat trailed by as many as 17 points with less than three minutes left ...

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Regardless of which team lost Game 7, it was going to be reasonable for that side to wonder "what if?" There was the Allan Houston shot with a second to go in 1999 that gave the eighth-seeded New York Knicks a 78-77 win in Game 5 of a best-of-five opening-round series. "This was all about competition," Spoelstra said. "You can put him in that category of superstars," Heat center Bam Adebayo said. It's just a shame that it didn't end that way." "When it ends, it ends in a thud," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

Jimmy Butler gave the Boston Celtics a hard-time in chasing their first NBA Finals berth since 2010. The six-time All-Star managed to lead the scoring ...

I learned that I have to be better, and I will be better. "I love that about Jimmy. That was the right look, and I just thought as it was leaving his hand, I thought for sure that was going down. "My thought process was go for the win," Butler said. My teammates liked the shot that I took. "I thought it would have been an incredible storyline for Jimmy to pull up and hit that three," Spoelstra said. "But he missed, we get the rebound and move on."

Despite arguably being the best player in the series, Jimmy Butler says he was "not good enough" in the conference finals against the Celtics in the NBA ...

Butler put up 41 points per game on a 55% field goal percentage in the two elimination games. Butler continued his dominance in Game 7 as he put up 35 points while making 13 of his 24 field goal attempts. Butler played with the season on the line away from home in Game 6.

For starters, this was a shot Butler had made earlier in the game.

All of this is to say, Butler, despite only scoring four points on 2-of-6 shooting in the fourth quarter on Sunday, earned the right to pull up for that shot with a chance to send the Heat to the Finals. He had 35 points on Sunday. That makes for 82 points over the last two games of this series. He felt good about the shot, it was a clean look, and he had the guts to take it. He had made the exact same shot in the first half. True, Horford wasn't the one having to stay in front of Butler in this play, as he was on the play in question, but Horford is more than capable of moving his feet on the perimeter, and chances are, if he does stay reasonably close to where he can contest at the rim, officials are going to give him a lot of leeway to defend aggressively at that juncture of a Game 7. Had that shot gone in, Butler, depending on what the Celtics might've done on the other end with still plenty of time on the clock, was in line to etch his legacy as one of the most clutch performers in postseason history. Even better, the ball was in the hands of Jimmy Butler, who had once again been phenomenal in Game 7 after going for 47 in Game 6.

In the conference finals, Butler led all players in scoring despite playing only the fourth-most minutes. He had scoring nights of 29, 35, 41 and 47 in the ...

The beauty of the playoffs is after a certain point, the game really does rest in the hands of the best players on the floor. And as great as Butler was in the pick and roll, it’s still not something he does with the frequency of other wing scorers. If Butler had anything left to prove after the first two rounds of the postseason, he did it against a Celtics defense that was far and away the best in the league during the majority of the regular season. But that’s what is required of the best players in the sport. It feels mean to tell Jimmy after the best postseason of his life he needs to come back and do it a second time. In Toronto in 2019, he was on the losing end of Kawhi Leonard’s four-bounce three that sent the Raptors to the East finals.

Jimmy Butler had huge praise for Jayson Tatum after the Celtics defeated the Heat in Game 7 to reach the 2022 NBA Finals.

He's one hell of a player, that's for damn sure." He's a superstar, and he deserves that. He had enormous praise for Tatum after the game.