Jimmy Butler doesn’t make any sense. Then again, neither did Dwyane Wade.
Six years ago, Wade shot 16 percent from three. Barely even attempted them, really. For a player who took 200-plus threes in three consecutive seasons, he only took 44 in 74 games that season. From December 18 through the end of the regular season, he didn’t make a single one. Teams still defended him at the arc because they knew not to play with fire. Maybe they weren’t surprised when Wade drained two three in the final minutes of a win or go home Game 6 in Charlotte. Everyone else was, especially a man sitting courtside in a purple shirt.
SHOP
Butler has not been a good three-point shooter in a HEAT uniform. While he’s been better from mid-range than most people think, he just completed his third consecutive regular season below 25 percent on at least 100 attempts behind the arc. In the entire history of the league, only Charles Barkley and Michael Ray Richardson – a four-time All-Star, back when the three-point line was invented in 1980 – have more than two seasons shooting so poorly from three. Nobody has more.
And yet Barkley and Richardson were never good shooters. During his time in Chicago and Minnesota, Butler was league-average. At some point along the way, he just stopped being that. With Butler reluctant to speak on his jumper with much detail, the mystery has lingered. At least with his prior performance, it wasn’t a surprise when he followed up his first Miami season by getting back to average shooting – 35 percent on two attempts, with some massive hits against the Milwaukee Bucks – during the run to the Finals in the Orlando bubble. Weird, but rational.
It’s tougher to say the same about April 19, 2022, after another pair of poor-shooting seasons. Unlike Wade, teams weren’t paying too much attention to Butler at the arc unless he picked up his dribble. In their revenge series last year, the Bucks puts Giannis Antetokounmpo on Butler, went under screens and gave him plenty of shooting cushion. They dared him and he took them up on it, going 4-of-15 in that series. Sure, Butler had an uptick over the last two weeks of this season where he shot 42 percent on three attempts per game, which we discussed at the time, but teams hadn’t yet reacted. He made an early three in Game 1 against Atlanta and the Hawks didn’t budge. They, too, gave him room. Try it, they said.
As he did against Milwaukee, he was more than willing. This time it worked, as Butler drained 4-of-7 behind the arc as part of a grandiose 45-point masterpiece – tying his high in makes over the past two seasons – including the biggest shot of the game with 1:36 left as the Hawks pulled within five after trailing by double digits much of the second half.
If you laughed as that shot went through, nobody could blame you. Sometimes all you can do is laugh, for lack of any rational explanation. But Spoelstra saw Wade do this before. Butler’s performance was no laughing matter.
“It actually is a good comparison,” Spoelstra said of Wade and Butler. “If you get in those pressure moments and those moments of truth, if you’re on the other side would you ever want to just give Dwyane Wade an open three? You would not. Because he’s a killer. He’s going to seize that moment.
“Jimmy has a lot of those same qualities. You could say whatever about the percentages. Throw those all out. When it becomes about winning, he’ll find a way to kill you. You can look at a scouting report, look at numbers, but that’s when he’ll kill you the most.
There are previous examples of this phenomena. Barkley, who might well be the worst volume shooter on record, shot 3-of-4 from deep en route to 56 points to finish a sweep of the Golden State Warriors in the First Round of 1994. A year later he went 4-of-8 for 47 points as Phoenix swept Portland. The aforementioned Michael Ray Richardson’s best playoff game, 32 points against the defending champion Philadelphia 76ers, included 3-of-7 from deep. As part of an incredible comeback with the Los Angeles Clippers involving a 40-15 fourth quarter, Josh Smith, a career 28 percent shooter, went 4-of-7 against the Houston Rocket in 2015. Russell Westbrook, a career 30 percent shooter, has 19 playoff games with three or more made threes in part because he never stopped taking them. Michael Jordan, a 32 percent shooter, famously shrugged off a 6-of-10 showing against Portland in the Finals.
Things like this do happen, but only a time traveler would know when they’re about to.
To the credit of those around Butler, they never wavered. While it came across as something of a running bit this season with Butler’s common refrain about how his teammates keep telling him to shoot more threes, it was a serious bit. His teammates, and coaches, were actually telling him to shoot more threes.
“He’s finally shooting them,” Gabe Vincent said.
“It’s time,” says Kyle Lowry. “We need that spacing.”
“Everybody is just getting on my nerves about shooting more threes, honestly,” Butler said. “My teammates and the coaches have so much confidence in me to score the ball and facilitate the ball and get a stop. I just be out there hooping. I don’t even realize that I’m shooting a three. I just take the shot that the defense gives me. And they’ve been going in as of late. Don’t jinx me though.”
If you’re Atlanta, you might not think much of the distance shots that went in. While two of Butler’s three were well contested, the first and third – using very different forms, as you’ll see, with Butler experimenting with a bit of a set shot over the past few weeks – involved a player either going under a screen or outright backing off.
“He hit some tough shots,” said Trae Young, who had a career-high 10 turnovers in Game 2. “There are shots you can’t guard on both teams. He hit a couple shots tonight that we have to be able to live with.”
If a player with Butler’s percentages had shot that well against Miami, that would be more than acceptable thinking in response. Maybe the correct thinking, too. Because if you’re Atlanta, you’re less concerned about the statistical anomaly – Butler was only 3-of-9 between the restricted area and the arc – and more concerned about his 8-of-9 at the rim and 11-of-12 at the line. With Clint Capela out, Nate McMillan started John Collins – an athlete but not exactly a bonafide rim protector – to help juice the offense. And the offense did look better even if the shooting wasn’t there. The cost was a lack of resistance at the rim. With Bam Adebayo in foul trouble for much of the night, Spoelstra shifted to five-out small-ball with Caleb Martin (who didn't play during the competitive portion of Game 1). In that alignment, if Butler beat his man – or attacked Young in pick-and-roll thanks to Lowry’s timely screens – there was nobody else in the way.
“He has shooters around him,” McMillan said. “Our defense hugs the perimeter and it is giving him opportunities to play one-on-one. Tonight he took advantage of that. He was really good playing, creating and scoring with the space that he had. If you are helping, he will pass the ball and he will give it up to the shooters on the perimeter. Tonight he found a rhythm and he stayed aggressive. We really just did not have an answer for guarding him.”
A few notes on Butler’s overall game. He became the third HEAT player ever to post 45 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists in a postseason game. Wade and LeBron James each did that one time. Neither of them also did it with zero turnovers, as Butler did (along with zero fouls). It was the 19th 45-5-5 game with zero turnovers in NBA history, regular season or otherwise, and just the second instance of that line in the postseason with only Jamal Murray doing the same in 2020. Butler’s GameScore of 40.1 is topped only by his two virtuoso performances against the Lakers in the 2020 Finals and was the 57th playoff game over 40, according to basketball-reference.com, ever. The only players with three or more postseason games as good as Butler’s three over-40 GameScore are Michael Jordan (seven times), LeBron James (six times), Barkley, Dirk Nowitzki, Shaquille O’Neal and Olajuwon. That’s the list.
Butler won’t do this every night, but the unique thing about Butler is he doesn’t try to do this every night. His 25 field-goal attempts in Game 2 were a career-postseason high. If he came out and scored 18 points on 10 shots to go with 10 assists in Game 3, it wouldn’t even qualify as a surprise. That’s just Butler.
“The next game it might be the free-throw line,” Spoelstra said. “It might be the attacks, it might be playmaking. That’s part of his genius.”
That part of Butler’s game tracks. He’s always been happy to do what Spoelstra asks him to do, whether it’s running the offense or hunting mismatches or taking on a defensive assignment like Young. It might sound like coach speak when Spoelstra describes him as a winner, but that’s just how coaches describe players who will do whatever it takes. That doesn’t always mean they’ll be successful. They’re just willing and able to try and do.
Will Butler keep shooting as he’s been shooting for the past couple weeks? Will he ever repeat 4-of-7 from three? It is folly to think we can know the answer to that. The percentages, the numbers, they would all seem to say no. But numbers don’t speak. They just are. They record what was. Percentages don’t decide, they can only help to inform what could happen. Butler is the type to fly headfirst into an asteroid field. Never tell him the odds.
And as we’re all liable to forget sometimes, 24 percent isn’t the same as zero percent.
Can you count on Butler, the shooter? Maybe, maybe not. But can you count on Butler, the player? The gamer? The winner? That much is undeniable.
Jimmy Butler doesn’t have to make a lot of sense. Greatness often doesn’t.