Jimmy Butler needs to be more aggressive than he was in Game 6
In rewatching Game 6, the easiest conclusion to get Butler going early in Game 7 is through aggression. His play at some points in Game 6 reminded Heat fans of his regular season mode, where he would sometimes fail to look at the basket and wouldn’t drive. Simply, he wouldn’t move and play with purpose. Getting downhill is exactly what Butler needs to do; it doesn’t just open his game up, but it opens the entire offense up.
Boston deserves credit for being about to slow Butler down, surely. Schematically, they have switched more than the opening three games, which has neutralized Butler to a larger extent. He can no longer get into his pull-ups at the same frequency, shots he drained at a 42.5% clip in the opening two rounds. Over the course of this series, that number has plummeted to 36.0%.
Butler’s lack of aggression was apparent from early in the game, and it continued until the final few minutes when he finally ramped up the pressure on Boston.
Look below: he has Marcus Smart – a smaller defender than him – on an island, but he decides to give Max Strus an isolation, ending in an airball. Why not attack? This type of scenario happened too often in Game 6.
It’s been no secret that Butler doesn’t have too much interest in attacking Jayson Tatum. Tatum has been his primary matchup, but Miami runs actions to intentionally get Tatum off of Butler. Small guards typically don’t fare well with Butler’s physicality and ability to rise up for jumpers over the defense, which is why Butler has gone at Smart and White in this series.
Unfortunately, the 6-foot-3 Smart and 6-foot-4 White are quite good defenders despite being shorter than Butler. Smart was last season’s Defensive Player of the Year, and White was just named to the All-Defensive 2nd Team. At all times, Butler’s matchup-hunting will still result in an effective defender on him. White, whom he has undoubtedly attacked more, has held Butler to 12/31 shooting (38.7%) with 4 blocks; he needs more credit for being one of the best two-way players in the league.
In addition, there were times in the game when Butler didn’t even seem interested in using a screen from a teammate, rejecting it and running into a handoff. It felt like there were too many possessions where Butler didn’t have the ball in his hands, as he would just sit in the corner.