Heat reach Eastern Conference Finals with 4-1 series win over Milwaukee Bucks
Wednesday 9 September 2020 08:35, UK
Jimmy Butler has found a home in Miami, where the team's toughness and commitment to pursuing championships has given him the deepest playoff run of his career.
Two months ago his words sounded crazy to anyone outside of the Miami Heat ecosystem. Butler was just being, well... Butler, when he talked about the Miami Heat's mission in the NBA bubble.
He told anyone willing to listen that they were coming north to win it all, not just to deliver a good showing and exit this unprecedented situation with any moral victories.
That is not the Heat way. Who cares that the roster did not scream "championship", with its mix of seasoned veterans and promising youngsters. Butler saw something in the Heat organisation, and the building blocks of this team in particular, when he spurned other recruiting pitches last summer and zeroed in on the hard-hat culture of the championship organisation Pat Riley built and Erik Spoelstra currently commands.
They are halfway to a fourth title now, and halfway to Butler's stated goal, with Tuesday night's 103-94 win over the No 1 overall seed Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 at HP FieldHouse.
Butler is not surprised things have come together so quickly.
"Not at all," said Butler, who led a balanced effort with 17 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. "We are a close group, we like being around one another. We are constantly talking about how we can make each other better. What we see out there on the floor, we are legit in it to win it. We don't care about stats, we don't care about fame. We don't care about none of that.
"All that we all care about is winning a championship. And I'm telling you, that is why we are playing the style of basketball we are playing right now."
The Bucks were missing their MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose sprained right ankle kept him out of what turned out to be the final game for the team with the best regular season record in the league in each of the past two seasons.
But the Heat had theirs in Butler, who has led the franchise to their first conference finals since 2014, when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were finishing up a wild run of four straight trips to the Finals, including championships in 2012 and 2013.
Butler does not think this team has come close to playing its best yet.
"I don't think so," he said. "I don't think we have played a full 48-minute game yet. And that is what's promising, is that if we do lock in and play from start to finish the way that we are capable of, the way we are supposed to, I think the game will be a lot easier. It is yet to happen, but we have got to have it happen in the next round."
Those 'Heatles' title teams rode the wave of their superstar trio to the top of the NBA mountain. This Butler-led Heat team is in this position, a league-best 8-1 in the postseason including a sweep of the Indiana Pacers in the first round, because their superstar trusted the culture and the process.
Butler also trusted his team-mates. That includes veterans like Goran Dragic and Kelly Olynyk, who were already in Miami and played big minutes in the close out of the Bucks, and trade deadline additions Jae Crowder and three-time champion Andre Iguodala, both of whom delivered handsomely on all that experience on Tuesday night. They also got important contributions from youngsters Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro.
Spoelstra knows how tough it is to get here, how special it is, particularly with a team that has had to endure the things this group has in its first year together while dealing with the shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the four-month lay-off and restart and the rigours of an unprecedented playoffs in this bubble.
"It is not easy to get to the conference finals and our organisation knows that," he said. "We have been trying desperately to get back to the conference finals. That is not our ultimate goal, we get it. But you could still acknowledge the journey, how hard it is to get to this point. That is why we brought Jimmy Butler here, that is why we put this team together with the veterans, adding Andre and Jae, building around Goran and Bam and adding to the young core.
"It is not easy to get to the conference finals, otherwise every team would be doing it. And we have been at this for 25 years under the Riley-Arison leadership. We have tried every single year just to get to this level and it just shows you how competitive this league is. It doesn't happen every year and we don't take it for granted. We are grateful for the opportunity we have had."
What looked like a motley crew to the outside world when training camp began looked like the perfect situation to Butler after stops in Minnesota and Philadelphia in the two previous seasons simply did not agree with his sensibilities about the game.
Butler was searching for a like-minded group of players, ones who compete with a chip on their shoulder, ones who were maybe overlooked and counted out or disregarded altogether. He was looking for players like, well … Jimmy Butler.
He was searching for guys like Crowder (16 points in Game 5) and Adebayo (13), Dragic (17) and Herro (14 off the bench, with several huge baskets down the stretch), guys young and old(er), guys who would chase greatness the way he would. And they did, running down the Bucks after falling behind by 13 points in the first quarter with a furious 30-9 rally of their own to regain control.
"I just came in with a killer mindset," Herro said. "I wanted to leave everything on the floor for my coaches and team-mates. This was one game we needed, we needed one game to move to the next round and I just tried to bring everything I could and leave it out there on the floor. It was ugly but we got the win and that's all that mattered."
So no, Butler is not surprised that his team is still playing, that they will celebrate this accomplishment, at last for a night or two according to Spoelstra, before locking in on the next step.
"It felt good at the end to obviously win it," Herro said. "We're going to enjoy this tonight and maybe tomorrow a little bit. But then we will get back to work, because we have still got some unfinished business."
They are off to the best start for a team seeded fifth or lower since the playoffs were expanded in 1984. That is news that might even surprise Butler, who is finally getting his first taste of the conference finals, but probably not.
In fact, he probably won't care. Because in his eyes, the Heat are still only halfway to the ultimate goal.
"This means a lot," Butler said. "But that is not my goal, that is not my guys' goal, that's not the organisation's goal. We want to win it. We want a championship. And that's what we're focused on. These next eight [wins] are going to be much harder than the previous eight. We know that. But we are ready for it."
