Heat, Butler getting tastefully testy
All-Star sounds off on teammates, Pacers as playoff series intensifies
Tuesday was an emotional start to the playoffs
After six weeks of living in the same hotels, sharing the same meals, seeing the same faces, things can start to get a bit testy.
For the Miami Heat, after a month and a half of quarantine at Disney World, that was the case at the start of their playoff series against the Indiana Pacers.
The result is a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven firstround Eastern Conference matchup.
To recap, in Tuesday’s 113-101 victory, Jimmy Butler:
— Called Heat teammate Goran Dragic “stinky.”
— Glowered at Heat center Bam Adebayo.
— Mouthed off toward a member of the Pacers’ staff.
All part of a day’s work at what could just as well, at this point of cabin fever, also be called the most unhappiest place on Earth.
For Butler and Adebayo, the moment typified the direct approach that makes honesty a cornerstone with this Heat roster.
“I think everybody here knows what I want, and that’s to win,” Butler said. “I know what Bam wants, and that’s to win. So when I see something when somebody’s not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, it’s quick. You get to the point and you get it out of the way.
“And here, that’s how we handle everything. We don’t beat around the bush and go tell somebody to tell somebody. You go right to that person, you say it, and it’s over with.”
By the time the game was over, Butler had 28 points, Adebayo a 17-point, 10-rebound double-double, with six assists.
“So we had a moment,” Butler said. “But that’s OK. We fixed it and we moved on from it.”
Turning conflict
“If you heard to it,” conquest.
Adebayo
said, “you’re going to think we’re mad at each other. But it comes from a place that we know that we can make each other better and we feed off each other.
“So when me and Jimmy are talking, it doesn’t sound great, but it comes from a brother standpoint.”
Just as Butler felt comfortable enough to tell Dragic he had to be better in the second half.
“Goran was stinky in the first half, too,” Butler said. “He admitted it to me.”
So, from 1 of 6 for three points over the first two periods, Dragic shot 8 of 13 for 21 over the final two.
“But he came out in the second half, chillin’,” Butler said, “being the Dragon we need him to be.”
And if the emotional fire also came from external sources, so be it, Butler said of one of his more emphatic moments as he took over at the close of Game 1.
“One of their silly coaches was yapping at me for some reason,” he said. “And that’s what that was. It was, ‘Why are you talking?’ It wasn’t to the fans.”
It couldn’t be, with fans not part of the postseason production on the neutral courts at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“But that coach decided to say whatever he decided to say to me,” Butler said. “Luckily, he had on a mask, so I just heard him mumbling through his mask.”