The Undertaker had the sweetest gig in all of sports entertainment at one point. Taker was a pillar of WWE in the early days up until the late 2000s when he was getting older and couldn’t do the week-to-week grind. Still, WWE needed him to complete the mystique of Wrestlemania. So, every year Taker would leave the public eye right until the months and shows leading up to Wrestlemania. The Dead Man would appear in about three months worth of shows to promote whoever he was wrestling with, and have his only match for the calendar year be the most hyped match at Wrestlemania. It was load management before it was cool.
Jimmy Butler is essentially doing the same thing in the NBA. Over the last three seasons including this year, Butler played in just 60 percent of the Heat’s regular season games. Every Heat fan knows that Butler will, at some point, break down in the season and need around two or three weeks out of the lineup to recover. This may even happen twice in a season. This is just what Jimmy does. He’s only played more than 70 games in a season once in his career. His other healthiest being the 2019-2020 season that was cut short and resumed in the Disney bubble.
For Miami, this has meant incredibly inconsistent regular season results. After their run to the Finals in the Bubble, the Heat stumbled into the Playoffs as the sixth seed, where they were swept by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. Last season, Butler missed 25 games, but thanks to All-Star caliber seasons from Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo, the Heat finished as the top seed in the East. They made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to the Boston Celtics.
This season, people really started to panic as the Heat just did not look right. Butler missed games. Adebayo was slumping. The Heat ultimately finished the season at seventh place and needed two play-in games to qualify as the eighth seed in the Playoffs.
Then, Jimmy Butler broke out of his coffin like the Undertaker to choke slam the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks.
Nikola Jovic catches a glimpse of Jimmy Butler's statline late in the Game 4 win 😅
— NBA (@NBA) April 25, 2023
Butler's 56-point #PLAYOFFMODE performance leads the Heat to a 3-1 series lead in Round 1.
📅 Game 5: Wednesday, 9:30pm/et on NBA TV pic.twitter.com/ZLoMfePaFy
It started with a 35-point explosion to lead the Heat to a Game 1 win in Milwaukee. With the series tied at 1-1, Butler shot 12-for-19 from the field for 30 points in Game 3, powering Miami’s 22-point rout of the Bucks.
Game 4 has to be the distillation of the Jimmy Butler experience. For months, he’s been either on the shelf or playing subpar basketball. When the big game arrives, no one is better than Jimmy Butler.
He started the game with 22 points in the first quarter. Then when the Bucks were threatening to steal the game late, Butler reignited and dropped another 21 points in the fourth quarter.
JIMMY BUTLER IS IN #PLAYOFFMODE
— NBA (@NBA) April 25, 2023
56 PTS | 19-28 FG 🔥
HEAT FRANCHISE PLAYOFF RECORD.
T-4TH MOST POINTS IN NBA PLAYOFF HISTORY. pic.twitter.com/dv4iNILXWu
He finished with 56 points, the most in Heat franchise history. If you stop and think about all the players that have worn that jersey, it makes Butler’s feat that much more crazy. He was averaging 22 points on 53 percent shooting in the regular season. Decent numbers. In the Playoffs, Butler is leading the league with 36 points per game on 62 percent shooting.
If you need a player to carry you in an 82-game season, Butler is simply not built for that life. But if you need a guy to win you 16 games for a championship, Butler is him.
