Getty Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat.
The Miami Heat are headed to the second round of the NBA Playoffs where they’ll take on the New York Knicks. Miami completed the gentlemen’s sweep of the No. 1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night, when they took Game 5 in overtime, 128-126.
After taking down the Bucks, the Heat became the first No. 8 seed to advance in the playoffs since the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Derrick Rose-less Chicago Bulls in 2012.
Should Miami advance past the New York Knicks, then they could very likely wind up with an Eastern Conference Finals rematch against Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart, and the rival Boston Celtics. Neither Tatum, nor Smart was surprised by the Heat’s first-round win over the Bucks.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it an upset,” Tatum said Thursday via NBC Sports Boston. “Miami is a really good team. With a really great coach. They obviously have great players. Then they just pull off moves. I guess people weren’t expecting what they earn, but I wouldn’t call it an upset.”
Smart shared a very similar message in the same clip.
“I wasn’t too surprised. The Heat is a dangerous team,” he said. “We all know the Heat play different in the playoffs, and they played the Bucks really well. I’m not as surprised as probably others, but I am surprised they went down the way that they went down.”
Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart weren’t shocked that the 8th-seeded Miami Heat were able to eliminate the top-seeded Bucks in five games.
Tatum, Smart, and the Celtics will look to punch their ticket to Round 2 on Thursday night, as they look to close out the Atlanta Hawks on the road.
Jimmy Butler Told Heat’s Erik Spoelstra to Get Him the Ball
Leading the way in Miami’s Game 5 closeout victory was Jimmy Butler, who scored a game-high 42 points on 17-of-33 shooting. Two of those points came at a dire time for the Heat. With just 2.1 seconds to play in regulation, the 33-year-old caught and finished an alley-oop to send the game to overtime.
JIMMY BUTLER. HOW?!?!?!?!
After the win, he reveal to reporters that he’d told head coach Erik Spoelstra to get him the ball in the key moment, citing Jrue Holiday‘s poor defense as reasoning why.
“You could just tell the entire series, for that matter, that Jrue wasn’t taking a body off of me,” Butler said via the Jump View YouTube channel. “He wasn’t going to shoot the gap. He wasn’t going to do any of that. So I said, ‘I guarantee whenever I turn this corner, he’s going to be locking and trailing. He has no choice other than to be behind [me].’ [Spoelstra] trusted me in that moment, as he has done multiple times. Even when I told him I was going to shoot the three, the time before. He was just like, ‘Go ahead man, take us home.’”
Jimmy Butler Plans to Get Ice Cream During Heat’s Break
Miami’s second-round series doesn’t tip off until Sunday, meaning Butler and his teammates will have a bit of downtime before then.
The six-time All-Star explained that he’s going to spend his time off in a pretty wholesome way, during his walk-off interview Wednesday.
“I’m going to play with my daughter,” he said via the NBA’s Twitter account. “I love her to death. I miss her. I’ve been away for a very long time. We’re going to get ice cream, we’re going to the park, we’re doing a lot of different stuff.”
Jimmy after dropping 42 PTS to lead Miami to the Eastern Conference Semifinals:
“I’m going to play with my daughter… we’re going to get ice cream.”
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