9/12/2023 0 Comments Jimmy butler stats vs lebron![]() Spoelstra sings hosannas about Butler’s stamina after his Game 3 masterpiece, he placed Jimmy in “the top percentile of this entire association, in terms of conditioning.” But this wasn’t really that. It didn’t work every time, but it worked sometimes, and in a series where the margins are this thin-these two teams have split the last four games, and have been separated by a grand total of two points in 192 minutes over that span-“sometimes” can be a pretty cool hand. And when there were no other outs, he trusted himself to improvise against the Defensive Player of the Year runner-up. He set screens himself, opening up driving lanes for reserve guard Kendrick Nunn (14 points and three assists in 27 huge minutes off the bench) and wreaking havoc on the Laker defense with his rolls to the rim. He triggered dribble handoffs to free up shooters like Duncan Robinson (who exploded for a postseason-high 26 points with a franchise postseason record-tying seven 3s) and Tyler Herro (12 points and three assists). He ran side pick-and-rolls with empty corners to get himself some space to operate. He exerted himself all night long, guarding James (and at times Davis) on one end while trying everything he could on the other to shake his 6-foot-11 shadow. ![]() He finished with 35 points on 11-for-19 shooting, 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals, and a block in more than 47 minutes of work. One game after being held largely in check by the menacing Anthony Davis, Butler was every ounce as transcendent as he was in Game 3. That final burst was the difference, as Miami stayed alive, 111-108, to keep the confetti cannons on standby, the Larry O’Brien Trophy in its case, and Game 6 on the schedule for Sunday. He scored or assisted on 11 of the Heat’s final 15 points in crunch time on Friday the Lakers, as a team, managed just nine. Which, naturally, is exactly what he did.īutler went toe-to-toe with James-the greatest player of his generation, smelling blood in the water minutes away from his fourth championship, throwing lightning bolts at the Heat all night long to the tune of 40 points on 15-for-21 shooting and a 6-for-8 mark from 3-point land (the most 3s he’s ever made in a Finals game), 13 rebounds, and seven assists in 42 minutes-and once again not only lived to tell the tale, but burnished his own now firmly established legend in the process. After everything he’d done, and he’d done everything, Butler was on the wrong side of the scoreboard and staring down the barrel of LeBron James in a closeout game this was the Heat’s season, slipping away, unless Jimmy could find a drop or two of gas in his tank to hit the accelerator again. run that put the Lakers up 99-96 with 5:32 to go. On a pull-up 3-point attempt with just under seven minutes to go, it looked like his legs had deserted him on a costly turnover in transition shortly thereafter that led to a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope runout dunk, it seemed like his focus had, too. Butler hadn’t scored since Dwight Howard cleaned him out with a flagrant-1 on a putback midway through the third. ![]() But he’d gotten just 48 seconds of rest in that span, with Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra cutting his rotation to the bone and leaning hard on his superstar to give Miami its best chance of staving off elimination. Jimmy Butler had been brilliant through the first three and a half quarters of Game 5, putting up his second triple-double of the 2020 NBA Finals to keep the Lakers at arm’s length. This was it: the moment when the remarkable would finally give way to the inevitable. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |