Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Butler tops league’s list of steals leaders
Butler doing his defensive damage in stealth mode
As big a personality as the Miami Heat have had since the team’s Big Three era, Jimmy Butler still has a way of sneaking up people.
So there he was last week, emerging from nowhere to the top of the league’s list of steals leaders, just as he went from stealth to the open court with his four steals in Sunday night’s 107-98 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers to open the Heat’s four-game western swing.
“His competitive fire,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, “things matter to him on that side of the floor.”
While Butler has spent almost the entire season averaging around two steals per game, he only recently became eligible for the league’s official leaders list, having again met the requisite numbers of appearances, after missing 10 games in January in pandemic protocols.
That had him entering this week as the lone NBA player, among those with the minimum playing-time qualifications, averaging more than two per game, at 2.1. Next closest, all at 1.7, were Jrue Holiday, Fred VanVleet, Kawhi Leonard and T.J. McConnell.
“The way you do the little things is the way you do everything,” Butler said of digging in on the defensive end with his active hands. “But I feel like if you lead by example, everybody’s got to follow suit. They see one of your best players doing it, they got to be able to do the same thing, because you can’t say that I or Bam or [Andre Iguodala] or any of those guys aren’t doing it.”
In all, seven Heat players recorded steals against the Trail Blazers, which contributed to 28 points off Portland turnovers.
Butler also stepped up in the latter stages Sunday with stifling defense against CJ McCo
llum, who had torched the Heat for 35 points in the teams’ previous meeting, a loss at AmericanAirlines Arena that Butler missed due to a stomach illness. This time McCollum closed with 17 points.
“It puts him in a natural position to lead defensively, when you have your leading scorer that’s willing to take on great challenges every single night,” Spoelstra said, as the Heat turned their attention to Tuesday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns. “But he’s also very disciplined. He’s active. He makes multiple efforts. He knows scouting reports.
“All these things allow you to build a great defense around his skill set.”
With Sunday’s victory, the Heat improved to 24-14 in Butler’s appearances this season, 4-11 in his absence.
By his standards, Butler’s stat line was pedestrian Sunday, with his 20 points, five assists and four rebounds. But his effort was anything but, including his 1,000th career steal in the first quarter.
“You got to make it tough on their guys,” he said. “You got to get in the passing lane, make their passes difficult, contest every shot. I think we did a good job of getting our hands in the way, get some deflections, get some steals and get out into the open floor.”
Also with multiple steals Sunday was center Bam Adebayo, with the second of his two steals on Sunday pushing him past Justise Winslow for 22nd on the Heat’s all-time list.
He credited Butler for allowing for such an aggressive defensive approach.
“I mean, it definitely makes it easier, because all I and Jimmy do is switch the whole game,” Adebayo said. “So it definitely makes the scheme easy when you develop the connection where sometimes it’s just reaction, where I know what he’s going to do on certain schemes when opponents are running it.
“When you got that connection, it’s always easier for both of us.”
Lacking the speed of Victor Oladipo, who is away from the team for further inspection on his ailing right knee, the attacking defense allowed the Heat to set Sunday’s tone off their defense.
“We try to get each other going as collective effort,” guard Kendrick Nunn. “At the beginning of the game we got a deflection and Trevor [Ariza] got the steal and turned it into an alleyoop to Bam.”