Heat star Jimmy Butler has a charged sideline confrontation with Miami stalwart Udonis Haslem, and neither backs down.
Jimmy Butler and Udonis Haslem were shouting at each other, fingers were pointed in various directions, some Miami players were trying to play peacemaker and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra slammed a clipboard to the floor in frustration.
A verbal conflict between Butler and Haslem marked Miami’s 118-104 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday in what was a showdown between two of the NBA’s top teams. The Warriors won despite playing without several of their top players as Stephen Curry (left foot) and Andre Iguodala (back tightness) missed the game while Draymond Green, Otto Porter Jr. and Klay Thompson sat out for injury management.
After the game, it took Miami about 35 minutes to emerge from the locker room for postgame, roughly three times as long as usual.
Game Recap: Warriors 118, Heat 104
The incident amongst the Heat began during the third quarter. Golden State started that quarter on a 19-0 run — capped by three 3-pointers from Jordan Poole from 31, 35 and 30 feet respectively, two of them banked in from just in front of the Heat bench to make a disastrous start even worse for Miami.
Tempers flared on the Miami bench during a timeout. Butler and Spoelstra had things to say to one another, then Butler and Haslem exchanged words, both eventually needing to be held back by teammates.
“It was crazy,” Lowry said. “It was passion.”
Per Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the exchange featured Haslem being held back by center Bam Adebayo, while Butler was held back by backup center Dewayne Dedmon. Spoelstra was nudged to the side by forward Markieff Morris as Spoelstra and Butler exchanged words with Spoelstra throwing his clipboard to the floor in frustration during the midst of that.
“You can use moments during the season to catapult you,” Spoelstra said. “You can galvanize together over frustration and disappointment. Teams can also go the other way. I don’t see that with our group. I don’t see that with our locker room. But we have needed a kick in the butt.”
Kyle Lowry scored 26 points, Adebayo had 25, Butler finished with 20 while Duncan Robinson had 13 in the loss.
“We got passionate players on this team, and coaches included,” Adebayo said, per the Sun-Sentinel. “So we’re going to have those moments when things aren’t going right.
“At the end of the day, we’re brothers. This is us at practice.”
Veteran forward P.J. Tucker told the Sun-Sentinel the incident was over as soon as the game ended.
“We’ll get back together, everybody love each other, blah, blah, blah,” he said.
For the Heat, this marked their second straight loss to a short-handed opponent. Miami lost in Philadelphia on Monday when the 76ers were playing without James Harden and Joel Embiid.
Miami is 47-26 and the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference standings, but holds a 1 1/2-game lead on the Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics for that spot. Golden State is 48-25 and trails the Memphis Grizzlies by two games for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
