Jimmy Butler Guaranteed A Heat Win And Ended Up Getting Run Out Of His Own Gym By The Atlanta Hawks
Eric Espada. Getty Images.For the last few weeks of the season, there seemed to be this narrative that nobody wanted to play the Miami Heat. Despite their massively underachieving season and a full 82 game body of work, we heard a lot of stuff like this
Playoff Jimmy this, Playoff Jimmy that, it was almost as if people forgot they still had to win their Play In game. If there's one thing we know about these games, it's that anything can happen. One off night can put your season on life support. It's no longer about who may have been the better team all season, it's about who can be better for these 48 minutes. Add in the fact that both the Heat and Hawks have been fairly mediocre all year, it was weird why people assumed the Heat would cakewalk into the first round.
This includes Jimmy Butler. Part of what makes Jimmy Butler who he is is his confidence. Nobody believes in Jimmy Butler more than Jimmy Butler. So it should surprise nobody that he all but guaranteed the Heat were going to win this game
"So as I take on tomorrow’s matchup, and we get that dub, we’ll worry about what goes on down the line."
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Whoops.
It would be one thing if the Heat lost and Butler still did his usual Playoff Butler thing and carried them. Unfortunately for the Heat, they got Play In Jimmy Butler and not Playoff Jimmy Butler. He finished just 6-17 (0-1) from the floor in his 34 minutes with a shot chart like this
The Hawks length gave him all sorts of problems around the rim all night, and once he stopped getting the bailout whistles, things looked like this
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To make matters worse, the Heat even got a decent Tyler Herro showing (26 points) as well as a Toronto level Kyle Lowry playoff outburst (33 points), and it still wasn't enough. That's tough to stomach, especially coming at home.
Instead, it was the Hawks that completely bullied the Heat pretty much from the opening tip. Their lead got as high as 24, but then they started to do Atlanta Hawks things. Anyone who has watched them this year knows that they weren't going to continue to shoot that well all game, that's part of the reason they are even in this game. The Hawks can't shoot either.
What they can do is own the offensive glass. This is where the game was lost for MIA, allowing 22 OREB for 22 2nd chance points. I don't care who you're playing, if you let someone own you like that on the glass, you're not going to win. Period. The Heat gave up 7 OREB alone in the 4th quarter, which killed any sort of run. It's hard to come back from 7-12 points if you can't get consecutive clean possessions on the defensive end. When Bam is your tallest player, I suppose this shouldn't be all that surprising. Great roster building Pat Riley!
I just know you can't go out and basically call your shot and then throw up a stinker and get run out of your own gym by a team that was 17-24 on the road this year. Maybe we should have seen this coming given the fact that the Hawks don't ever do two things in a row. They don't win two in a row and they don't lose two in a row. After they dropped the final game of the season against the Celtics, maybe we should have known what was about to happen. Shoutout to them for their big win.
For the Heat, welcome to the ICU. They'll have to wait to see who they'll play next between CHI/TOR, and even if they win that game their reward is a rested Giannis. Good luck! All of the issues that plagued the Heat all year, from their inability to shoot to their rather shitty defense over the last month plus of the year, this game was a reminder that you need more than reputation to win in the Play In/postseason. You have to actually show up.