Star adds fuel to the playoff fire
Butler sounds pretty confident in saying the Heat will add pieces in free agency
The Heat’s Jimmy Butler
A year ago, Pat Riley turned zero salary-cap space into All-Star forward Jimmy Butler in NBA free agency.
In an interview aired Thursday by ESPN, Butler said he expects more upcoming front-office magic from the Heat, this time with the Heat flush with cap space going forward.
“I think it’ll happen,” Butler said. “Only time will tell. I’m telling you, the organization is really good at getting what they want to win a championship. It’s gonna happen. We have all the key pieces. We have shooters. We got the youth. We got the vets. And I think, a little Miami hurt anybody.”
Butler sat out Friday’s game against the Indiana Pacers at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex, with the final game of the regular season having no impact on playoff pairings.
The Heat open the postseason Tuesday against Indiana, which means another go-round for Butler against Pacers foil T.J. Warren, who also was held out of Friday’s game.
“A high level of competition,” Butler said of the intensity against Warren. “I’ll keep it at that for now and keep it at basketball. I know that I have a job to do just like he has a job to do. But I know that the sunshine never group of guys that we have, we’re going to make sure that our job gets done.”
After facing and defeating Warren and the Pacers on Monday, Butler found himself in a contentious moment Wednesday night against Oklahoma City guard Chris Paul, leveling the veteran All-Star with an emphatic shoulder bump, after Paul previously had thrown a ball out of bounds off the Heat’s Duncan Robinson.
“I just don’t like you picking on my young fellas like that,” Butler said. “I feel like you didn’t have to do that. That was like an eye for an eye.”
Asked if that could create a wedge with Paul, who is head of the players’ union, Butler said, “I don’t care. I don’t need friends here in the bubble. I barely leave my room. I’m in my room minding my business. I’m not going to see nobody.”
As for the quarantine setting that has playoff opponents in a common living and recreation areas, Butler said it could get interesting during the intensity of the playoffs.
“I think it’s tough having to play somebody that you’re going to have to walk by on the way to testing or to a meeting or to a practice or something like that,” he said amid the Disney World bubble that features daily coronavirus testing for COVID-19. “So it’s no telling. But I don’t think there’s going to be no punches thrown.
“You’re going to get a mean mug here and there, maybe a couple of words, definitely from some players that’ll still be in the playoffs. I don’t know, maybe there’s some part of it that the world doesn’t get to see. But it’s for sure going to happen.”