For the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler is not backing up his talk
If you watched the first half of the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics Eastern Conference Finals Game 5, you probably thought Miami was about to punch its ticket to the NBA Finals. Then, the tone shifted, and much like when “The Rains of Castamere” started to play at The Red Wedding, the Heat looked like Caitlyn Stark begging for the violence to stop.
The Boston Celtics obliterated the Heat in the second half, outsourcing them 41-25 in the third quarter basically making the fourth-quarter garbage time. The self-proclaimed hardest-working man in the NBA, Jimmy Butler was nowhere to be seen.
Butler had only three points in the second half (should have been five as Theis wasn’t called for a goaltend in the third quarter).
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The Heat went from white-hot to a simmer. Butler was mostly to blame for this. He was awful on defense, allowing more than a couple of easy baskets after the C’s reclaimed the lead. He almost looked like he was going through the motions in the fourth while his teammates tried to do something to cut the lead.
Having a bad game is not Jimmy Butler’s fault but Jimmy has positioned himself as a player who can do no wrong. Nobody works harder than Jimmy Butler according to Jimmy Butler. You can ignore how he was a bad teammate in Minnesota because look he wore Tyler Herro‘s High School jersey to Miami’s practice.
Jimmy Butler is a good player, he does a lot of the little things stars don’t like to do during the game. This idea the media is trying to make that Jimmy Butler is a franchise star is not accurate. This indulgence into what Jimmy thinks he is has now made people overvalue what he truly is as a player. He has no supreme ability, he is not an elite finisher around the rim or an elite shooter but he does make plays that can keep you in the game.
If the whole situation was reversed and the Celtics were up 3-1 and led at halftime to then get blown out in the second half by the Heat, everyone knows Jimmy Butler would be chirping and saying how you can’t count them out.
When a “great” player is up at halftime in a game to close out a series, the great player closes out the series. Jimmy can talk but he has done nothing to prove he is great.
Jimmy has enough star power to call attention anytime he feels like he is not being properly recognized. When his team collapses in the second half of a game there is no Jimmy Butler overreaction. Unlike actual stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant who have every breathe they take on the court questioned. Even if the Heat beat the Celtics in this series, Jimmy has shown us not to believe what he says he is.