Jimmy Butler ready for 48 minutes and confident about eliminating Knicks in Game 6: ‘We’ll win’
Jimmy Butler seems confident the Heat will eliminate the Knicks on Friday— especially if he never leaves the court. For the first time in these playoffs, he was decidedly outplayed by an opponent, Jalen Brunson, who actually played all 48 minutes in Wednesday’ s Game 5 and kept New York’ s heart beating for at least a couple more days. They became the first Knicks duo to...
Jimmy Butler seems confident the Heat will eliminate the Knicks on Friday — especially if he never leaves the court.
“If [coach Erik Spoelstra] tells me to play 48 minutes, I’ll be suited and booted and ready to do that,” Butler said. “And we’ll win.”
The delivery made “we’ll win” feel more like a throwaway than a guarantee from Miami’s best player, but it certainly continued Butler’s theme of assuredness in his postgame presser. For the first time in these playoffs, he was decidedly outplayed by an opponent, Jalen Brunson, who actually played all 48 minutes in Wednesday’s Game 5 and kept New York’s heart beating for at least a couple more days.
Now some of the pressure shifts back to the Heat, which needs to win at home on Friday night to avoid a Game 7 on the road.
“I don’t ever think losing is encouraging,” Butler said. “I hope that the only way is up from here. So we will be better the next game.”
Butler’s 19 points in Game 5 represented the lowest of his last 10 postseason games, and, for the Knicks, much of the credit belonged to Quentin Grimes. The defensive specialist, like Brunson, never rested Wednesday night. They became the first Knicks duo to log all 48 minutes in a playoff game since Walt Frazier and Jerry Lucas in 1972.
Over 50 years ago.
Grimes saved his most impressive play for the final minutes, a defensive stop that helped seal the 112-103 victory. After getting clobbered by Bam Adebayo on a screen with 1:50 left and a six-point Knicks lead, Grimes came up limping but recovered quick enough to front Butler on the perimeter.
Hobbling through his first couple steps, Grimes anticipated Butler’s right-handed dribble and stripped the future Hall of Famer. It was in the middle of a pivotal 90-second scoreless stretch from Miami.
“I had just bent my knee on the screen, but it’s the playoffs,” Grimes said. “You have to do whatever you can to win. It’s what you live for, it’s what you watched as a kid. So I knew I was hurt a little bit, but it’s not going to stop me from doing whatever I can to get a stop or disrupt the play.”
It was a redemptive performance from Grimes, who struggled in the opening round against Cleveland, suffered a shoulder injury, and was removed from the starting lineup for the first three games of the Miami series.
“[Butler’s] probably been the best player of the playoffs so far. So knowing I have that matchup every night, I have to be more disciplined and probably have to play 48,” Grimes said.
Butler, who played the entire second half and finished with 43 minutes and nine assists, said his low scoring output wasn’t a reflection of New York’s defense — but rather a purposeful approach to get his teammates involved.
“I was making all the right plays. I’m not a scorer anyways,” he said. “Nineteen is enough for us to win. If we make a couple more shots, I don’t think that question is asked the exact same way. It doesn’t matter if I score 40 or 50, 19 or 9, we always have enough to win. And if I score 10 points the next game and we win, that won’t be an issue, that won’t be a question, and I’ll continue to play the right way.”
The issue with that strategy is the Heat lacks offensive firepower other than Butler, who needed to score 56 points and 42 points to close out the Bucks in the final two games of Round 1.
Now he’s anticipating a Heat victory and a Knicks elimination on Friday night, while Brunson, the hero of Game 5, was locked into getting back to Madison Square Garden.
“Nothing really to celebrate,” Brunson said. “We obviously won, get to see another day. This is great, but we got to go get one down there.”
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