Jimmy Butler may not be able to help his team on the court, but he seems to be doing the next best thing according to Heat fans; trolling the Boston Celtics.
After the Miami Heat took Game 2 without Butler in the starting lineup, the six-time All-Star took to social media to back his team up while also throwing some shade at the number-one seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Miami Heat defeated the Boston Celtics 111-101. The Heat, who have been playing without Jimmy Butler in the first round were written off by many and some even claimed that the Celtics would move on with a clean sweep. Fortunately for Heat fans, the rest of the Miami roster was in no mood to be swept by Boston as they went on to take Game 2.
After the win, Jimmy Butler went to his Instagram to share a statement from last year. The statement in the picture was, “Don’t let us get one.” Jaylen Brown originally said this during last year’s playoff matchup between the Heat and the Celtics. It was made under the pretense that if the Celtics ended up winning even a single game, they would go on to win the series, no matter how big of a lead the other team possessed. Though Boston was able to extend that series to seven games, they weren’t able to close out the series, ultimately losing in Game 7.
Butler captioned that image, “Feeling cute, might delete later. sikeeeee I ain’t deleting s***.” Now, if the caption wasn’t brutal enough, the graphic in the image was Butler’s face pasted over Jaylen Brown in a Celtics jersey, adding insult to injury.
As for Game 2 between the Heat and the Celtics, Miami really brought the heat. Caleb Martin, Tyler Herro, and Bam Adebayo rose to the occasion, all finishing the game with 20+point performances. While the field goal percentage between these two teams was fairly close, the same cannot be said for their long-range shooting. The Celtics shot a decent 37.5% from beyond the arc while the Heat knocked down more than 50% of their long-range bombs, clocking tonight’s performance from beyond the arc at a 53.5% three-point percentage.
Now, as per the league’s official injury report, Jimmy Butler has been sidelined due to an MCL sprain in his right knee. Butler was last seen in action during the play-in loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, “The expectation is Miami’s Jimmy Butler will be out multiple weeks.” So, by the initial report, it does not seem like fans might get to see Butler in action during this series. However, if this first-round matchup does end up going to seven games, Butler might end up rejoining the team’s starting lineup sooner than expected.
Meanwhile, this first-round matchup just turned into an exciting series as the Heat managed to even the score, 1-1. In doing so they became just the 3rd team this post-season to win a game away from home, joining the Pacers and the Mavericks. Tune into TNT Network at 6:00 PM ET on the 27th of April to see the Miami Heat host the Boston Celtics for Game 3.
