MIAMI -- Jimmy Butler loves to pounce.
After Boston’s third quarter timeout hoping to stem the tide of a 10 point lead flipping into an eight-point deficit, Butler did it twice to pick off Jayson Tatum passes for immediate points the other way.
“I tell you right now, (Erik Spoelstra) doesn't like me -- he doesn't like whenever I do it,” Butler admitted after Miami’s Game 1 win. “Luckily, I was two-for-two on those particular shoot-the-gap passing lanes. But I don't get them all the time, and then you see him give a look over there.”
There were no looks from the Heat coach this time, and when Butler ripped Tatum straight up later in the third quarter, he became responsible for half the Celtics stars turnovers in that 12 minute disaster.
“He's relentless. That's the bottom line,” Bam Adebayo said. “He's playing incredible basketball, getting guys open. Doing it on both ends.”
Tatum is the better player, but you wouldn’t know it on this night. Of course, that's what Butler does in the playoffs. Tatum is the guy with the MVP votes, but Butler is the guy who finds ways to elevate his game during the playoffs.
Butler finished with a 41 point, 4 steal, 3 blocked shot night, living at the free throw line and outplaying Tatum by a wide margin in the second half as Miami ran away with the win.
“Obviously I don't want to turn the damn ball over and [expletive] like that, but I guess throughout the course of a game, things happen, and they go on runs,” Tatum said. “Throughout the course of the playoffs, we've done a great job of responding to runs after calling timeout, things like that. But for whatever reason we didn't today. I'll be the first one to say I'll take the blame for that. I've got to lead better. I've got to play better, especially in those moments.”
Tatum is a superstar player, capable of games few people on the planet can produce. He did it against Milwaukee in a critical Game 6 when he scored 46 points and made sure the Celtics lived to see Game 7. He was on his way to doing it in this game when he dropped 21 points on 9-14 shooting along with 5 assists and just a single turnover in the first half.
But then Butler, whose 14 points on 4-8 shooting was also pretty good in the first half, reached into a place he tends to find in situations like this and turned the game on its head.
“I think his aggression just puts everyone else in their places,” PJ Tucker said. “He's consistently being aggressive, whether he's making shots, missing shots, whatever the case is, and that puts everybody else in position to be able to rebound and get open shots with people helping and him making plays for everybody else and them having to overreact. It lifts the level of our team and it lifts the play of everybody.”
When Tatum dug into his bag, all he came up with was lint. Once again, the Celtics found themselves responding emotionally to the wrong things. For all of Tatum’s talent and ability to lead his team to great performances, he is still prone to stretches where drifts into the wrong territory.
Back in the Brooklyn series, Tatum admitted that “when I get between those lines, I care. It means a lot to me and sometimes my emotions get the best of me.” Whether he was tired, getting caught up in a duel with Butler, or reacting to refs, Tatum tripped over himself.
“A lot of (turnovers) were just strictly playing the crowd, trying to draw a foul instead of just making the right play,” Ime Udoka said. “We all got caught up in officiating a little bit in that quarter when they got physical, and instead of trying to make the right play, drive and kick, get to the basket, we were looking for fouls, and that led to some of those turnovers.”
Tatum sat on that makeshift stage set up for the conference finals media availabilities and took the blame for this loss. He was the main culprit in the third quarter collapse and he knew it. He was outplayed by Butler.
That's alright, though. That was going to happen in this series at some point, and it happened right away. All Boston needs is for Tatum to be better than Butler for four games. But it’s going to be tough. Tatum has the talent, and he can use that talent in more ways than Butler can dream of. But Butler’s mind can push him beyond expectations.
“I like physicality,” Butler said “I want to run into people and see who falls down first, who is going to quit first. I think that's the style of basketball I like to play. And so do they. And you know, I was 0-for-2 from three tonight. I want to go 0-for-0 next game because I just want to keep banging into people.”