Playoff Jimmy Butler has arrived early for the Heat: ‘Jimmy is a generational competitor’

The Miami Heat’s playoffs started early, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that “Playoff Jimmy” also arrived earlier than expected.

With the Heat needing every win it can get with less than three weeks left in the regular season just to avoid the play-in tournament, Butler has turned up his aggressiveness and assertiveness over the last month in an effort to lead his team up the Eastern Conference standings. Butler was already playing at an elite level before this stretch, but he has been playing at an all-time level since the All-Star break.

In 15 games since the break, Butler is averaging 26.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game while shooting an incredibly efficient 60.5 percent shooting from the field, 10 of 19 (52.6 percent) from three-point range and 85.1 percent from the free-throw line on 11.2 foul shots per game. On the defensive end during this eye-opening run, he’s averaging 1.6 steals per game and limiting the player he’s guarding to just 42.8 percent shooting from the field (4.9 percent worse that those players’ overall combined shooting percentage this season), according to NBA tracking stats.

“He’s just in a groove right now,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said of Butler. “We just got to find ways to maximize that groove. For us, to be able to have a guy like that doing things that he’s doing, you just kind of watch the magic.”

For perspective, Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic is the only player in NBA history to average at least 25 points, six rebounds, five assists and one steal per game while shooting 60 percent or better from the field, 50 percent or better on threes and 80 percent or better from the foul line during a 15-game span. Coincidentally, Jokic strung together the first three 15-game stretches in league history that met this criteria this season.

Butler, 33, capped off the fourth such 15-game stretch in NBA history by finishing Wednesday’s 127-120 win over the New York Knicks with a game-high 35 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field, 2-of-2 shooting on threes and 11-of-14 shooting from the foul line, four rebounds, nine assists and four steals in 37 minutes. With just eight regular-season games left to play, the win moved the Heat (40-34) even closer to escaping the possibility of the play-in tournament.

“I would say Jimmy is a generational competitor,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, as the Heat entered a two-day break before closing its quick two-game homestand with another important game on Saturday against the Brooklyn Nets. “When things really ramp up and there becomes way more consequences and pressure, that’s when he’s going to compete and play at his best. That’s an incredible skill set to have. In a league that’s probably becoming a little bit younger and players are trying to figure things out, the real competitors can really stand out. Jimmy is at the top of the food chain as a competitor.”

Butler was effective from just about every area of the floor in Wednesday’s victory, shooting 6 of 9 (66.7 percent) at the rim, 1 of 3 (33.3 percent) on non-rim paint shots, 2 of 5 (40 percent) on non-paint twos, 1 of 1 on corner threes and 1 of 1 on above-the-break threes. He did it in isolations, in the post, as a screener, as the roll man, and spot-up and pull-up shooter.

So much of the Heat’s offense ran through Butler when he was on the court against the Knicks, as he finished the win with a usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of 32.5 percent. This represents Butler’s third-highest single-game usage rate of the season.

“You give him the ball and get the hell out the way, I’m being honest,” Lowry said of playing alongside Butler. “That’s how good he is. You guys watch the games. He’ll hold the ball and dictate who he wants to be in it, who he wants to get shots. That’s just when you’re a superstar like he is, you see the game differently and the game is a lot easier. So he’s able to just get to his spots and help us all be better.”

Butler’s usage rate has jumped to 26.6 percent since the All-Star break as his aggressiveness has ramped up. His usage rate was 24.5 percent prior to the break.

“Honestly, it’s really winning time right now,” Butler said. “I know that I can get my guys involved still. Maybe I just got to attack earlier and make them guard me, so they get open shots. That’s kind of like the mentality right now.

“But I’m always playing to win. It’s not about how many points I score, it’s not about how many rebounds or assists I got. I just pride myself on playing basketball the right way. Guarding, making sure that everybody is comfortable out there. It just looks like I’m aggressive from the jump, which I might be. But all of it goes to waste if we don’t win. So [Wednesday] it was a good thing.”

Along with Butler’s aggressiveness, his emotions were also turned up against the Knicks.

After hitting an and-one turnaround jumper over Knicks guard Quentin Grimes, Butler turned around and yelled “I’m like that” at the Heat’s bench before making the ensuing free throw to give Miami an 11-point lead in the third quarter. Butler also drove at and scored over 6-foot-2 Knicks guard Jalen Brunson early in the third quarter before celebrating with the universal “too small” signal by lowering his hand to the ground to make sure everyone knew he had the clear size advantage in that matchup.

Earlier in the game, Butler walked into an open pull-up three that went in late in the second quarter. He then quickly turned and said something to Heat icon and close friend Dwyane Wade, who was sitting courtside for Wednesday’s game at Miami-Dade Arena.

“He’s been on his stretch right now, so we’ve just been going to him,” said Heat center Bam Adebayo, whose offensive numbers have taken a bit of a dip since the break because so much of the offense is now running through Butler. “Numbers don’t lie. He’s putting up numbers and he’s being efficient. So we just gotta keep rolling with him and letting him hoop.”

Usually this version of Butler is reserved for the playoffs, but it’s here a few weeks early this season as he tries to lift the Heat up the East standings in order to avoid the play-in tournament. The Heat has won four of its last five games and seven of its last 10 games behind Butler’s excellence.

“Jimmy being Jimmy,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “Just being aggressive, getting to his spots. We see it every year around this time of year.”