With no counter for Jimmy Butler, Knicks will not survive Heat
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MIAMI — Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau ran out of superlatives when asked about Miami’s Jimmy Butler before Game 3.
Thibodeau marveled at Butler’s pick-and-roll game, how he runs offense, gets to the free throw line, posts up, his shot awareness and body position.
“He’s clever with the ball so you try to make a guy like that work for his points,” Thibs said.
Too bad his team did not get the message.
Game 3 was over the minute the Heat announced the best player in the postseason this year not named Devin Booker was cleared after suffering an ankle injury late in Game 1.
Butler put his stamp on this game from the first possession, rebounding Julius Randle’s weak fadeaway, leading the break and knocking down a short turnaround until he came off the bench to nail a 14-footer midway through the fourth quarter after the Knicks got to within 14.
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And in between he entertained the crowd, dancing and spinning the ball on his finger Globetrotter style as officials were dealing with an altercation between Miami’s Cody Zeller and the Knicks’ Randle and Isaiah Hartenstein late in the third quarter better described as a dustup than a brouhaha, especially with the history of these teams.
Butler’s numbers were modest, by his standards, in Miami’s 105-86 victory giving it a 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal. But his imprint set the tone.
“I’m comfortable, I’m confident, I work extremely hard on my craft,” Butler said.
Butler finished with a game-high 28 points in 36 minutes, certainly well below his 35.5-point average in the postseason and said he “was definitely out of rhythm,” shooting 9 of 21.
But as he left the court and headed down the hallway to the Heat’s locker room he could be heard shouting, “Best player in the world has returned.”
He was joking … we think.
And it didn’t…
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