Butler turns NBA Finals into a series again

Game 4 goes tonight in bubble in Orlando

And just like that, it’s a series again.

The Miami Heat, without two key starters in the lineup, fought their way back into an NBA Finals that seemed almost destined to be a sweep in favour of the of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Instead the Heat, as promised, found a way without starting centre Bam Adebayo and floor general Goran Dragic in a 115-104 win Sunday to get the series back to a 2-1 deficit.

What the Heat did have was Jimmy Butler and it didn’t need much more than that.

Butler was, in a word, awesome.

Two games after rolling his ankle and not missing a beat, Butler had a game for the ages, finishing with 40 points, 13 assists, 10 rebounds, two steals and two blocks to silence all the doubters who were all but conceding a sweep.

But any talk of his triple-double post-game was met with a similar response from the man himself.

It was always a variation of “I don’t care how many points I got” or “I don’t care about the triple-double. All I care about is winning.”

And now that the Heat have had a taste of winning in this NBA Finals, Butler believes there is a great chance we’re all going to see more of that from Miami.

“We’re just settling down,” Butler said. “It’s a lot of bright lights and a big stage for just about everybody except for Coach (Spoelstra), Dre (Andre Iguodala) or OG (Udonis Haslem). We’ve not really been here before. But we are coming to realize we are a really good team and we can win as we showed tonight if we play basketball the right way and if we do what we say we are going to do. So, everybody is just becoming more and more comfortable as the days play out.”

Spoelstra wasn’t even going to attempt to make this out to be anything more than the Butler game that it was.

“How else do you say it other than Jimmy effing Butler,” Spoelstra said of the entire evening. “But this is what he wanted, this is what we wanted. It’s really hard to analyze or describe Jimmy until you actually feel him between the four lines. He’s a supreme, elite competitor and we needed it.

“Obviously this was a very desperate, urgent game and he was doing it on both ends of the court, just put his imprint on every important part of the game,” Spoelstra said. “He’s in the top percentile of this entire association in terms of conditioning and you saw he just got stronger as the game went on.”

Canada’s own Kelly Olynyk was next in scoring behind Butler for the Heat with 17 off the bench, matching Tyler Herro’s 17, but really this was a Butler statement in a career where he has had his fair share of statement games.

And as good as Butler was for the Heat, it may not have mattered had the Lakers been operating at full speed with LeBron James doing his regular thing, while Anthony Davis never really got started on the night.

Davis picked up two early fouls and didn’t even hit the score sheet until the game was three minutes into the second quarter.

He picked up his fourth foul a few minutes into the third quarter and, other than a couple of brief flurries, never really got going.

Davis, who was so instrumental in the first two wins of the series for the Lakers settled for just 15 points in 33 minutes and was a stunning minus-26 for the game.

Expect a response from the Lakers again in Game 4, the Heat certainly are. But also look for the Heat to get at least Adebayo, the lynchpin of their defence, back after two straight games missed.

Adebayo lobbied hard to get into the lineup for Game 3 but the Heat determined both he and Dragic were not quite ready to resume this series.

A Dragic return for Game 4 seems less likely, but he has been pushing hard to get back on the court, too, according to Spoelstra.