EXPOSING JIMMY BUTLER: It's Time For The Truth...

Last night Giannis and Milwaukee exposed Jimmy Butler and his weakness once again. And it’s time for all of you to finally know the truth. Why he’s been terrible against the Bucks lately and why Miami is in danger of once again losing badly to Milwaukee in the playoffs. Sit back and let me reveal everything that Jimmy doesn’t want you to know. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. What you’re watching right now is a compilation of Jimmy Butler’s extremely poor performance against Milwaukee in the playoffs last year, along with Stephen A Smith expressing how disappointed he was in Jimmy. Just to remind you, in that 4 game sweep the Bucks held Butler to 4/22, 4/10, 7/17 and 4/15 from the floor. And what happened last night? 2/14. A miserable 6 point outing. But why is that? Well this is where we get to the part that exposes Jimmy Butler. When I say his name, what’s the first association that comes to mind? Mid range killer right? A guy who, just like Demar Derozan, KD, Chris Paul, or Devin Booker is incredibly efficient from that area of the court. Well, if I show you his shooting stats, you’ll see that he’s only 36.3% on those attempts. Combine that with the miserable 19.0% on three point shots, you realize that Jimmy is actually a paint killer, since that’s how he scores most of his points. Attacking the basket. Something that often gets overlooked with him. And this season is not an aberration, this really is who Butler is. If we added up all of his mid range shots from the past 5 seasons we get a pretty unremarkable 37% for a midrange killer. So with all of these numbers in mind, now you see that his primary weapon is getting to the rim. Something that he cannot do against Milwaukee. Let me show you why. Right from the start as Butler gets a screen here, Portis is the switch, but watch how far back he goes, literally baiting him to shoot. Again, similar situation but this time Jimmy decides to go inside. So as we stop it right here we see that since Portis is comfortable to give him that cushion, splitting the middle between him and Adebayo, so the pass is also being guarded. And at the same time, it gives Middleton an opportunity to recover and get back, so all of a sudden this turns into an awkward and contested shot that of course misses. This is an obvious example on the high pick, watch how Ibaka drops low forcing a pull up. Even if Adebayo was in a better position for the roll, the Bucks got Giannis here like a free safety in the NFL following the action and ready to jump in there, so that pass would not be possible. With Matthews on his back and Ibaka in front, Butler is forced into taking a few strange dribbles without any real idea, as he goes to the side and raises up against the outstretched arms of the big man and there’s no way that this goes in. Even in that one situation that he found himself behind that Milwaukee wall, Antetokounmpo flew in seemingly from nowhere for the monster block. And all of this is just a mirror image of what happened last year in the playoffs, having a pesky defender on him, combined with big bodies in the paint. And the most important piece to this puzzle was not even in the game this time. Of course I’m talking about Brook Lopez. He owned both Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo on the defensive end in the playoffs to the point where they didn’t even know what to do with the ball once they got in the paint. So it’s obvious that in order for the Miami Heat to survive they would need to make a bunch of shots. Which funny enough they did in this game. They were blazing hot 21/44 from downtown that’s 47.7%. This is actually how they had a 14 point lead with 6 minutes to go. But that’s how they lost the game as well, once Milwaukee buckled down defensively, and those 3s stopped falling. I’ve been a big believer in the Heat, and I even went on Dom 2k’s podcast and picked them as a team who could come out of the east, but my confidence is shattered after seeing that things are pretty much status quo from last year. Granted Kyle Lowry did not play in this game and he is a huge reason for why I trust this team so much, so I want to see the Heat at full strength in a potential playoff matchup against Milwaukee. But as it stands at the moment, things are not looking too good for them. Let me know in the comments if you already knew the shooting numbers for Jimmy Butler or if this was a huge eye opener for you. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.