With his career-high performance against the Milwaukee Bucks, Jimmy Butler led the Miami Heat to a 119-114 win Monday night, which has them up 3-1 against the best team in the NBA.
Advertisement
The 56-point performance etched him in the history books of the NBA, for having one of NBA’s greatest ever Playoffs performance.
Coming out of a tumultuous season for the Miami team, all of us were aware of “Playoffs Jimmy”. But only a handful would have thought that he’d have a 2-game advantage on the Greek Freak after finishing the season as a 7th seed in the East and barely making it through the Play-in tournament.
One of them might have been The Ringer’s chief, Bill Simmons.
Bill Simmons issued Jimmy Butler and Miami Heat a warning in March
One of the biggest Celtics fans, Simmons knows quite well what Jimmy Butler could do in the playoffs. And he talked about it on his podcast, late in March, just toward the end of the post-season when the Heat were struggling to get wins in the regular season.
“There’s Jimmy [Butler] and Spo [Erik Spoelstra] and Bam [Adebayo] and [Pat] Riley lurking every April like Michael F*cking Myers,” said Simmons on the Bill Simmons Podcast.
“You know how the movie ends, and you’ll probably survive, but you’ll also probably be standing in your burning house covered in blood. Any Butler team scares the sh*t out of me.”
If Giannis and the Bucks survive this Heat-wave, he will be the man covered in blood, standing in his burning house. The burning house would be the Fiserv Forum (if this series goes to a Game 7).
The Bucks might not be as big a threat in the Conference Semis IF they get through
Jayson Tatum and Co, after defeating the Nets, the Bucks, and the Heat on their route to the 2022 NBA Finals, were not able to have the same will or desire to win against the Warriors.
Similarly, if the Bucks do somehow get through the Michael Myers that is Jimmy Butler, they are not going to be their regular-season self even if Giannis had not injured his lower back.
Having said that, all the other teams in the first round of the East probably would have a better chance of going through to the Finals than the Bucks. Maybe even the Knicks/Cavaliers.
