Jimmy Butler has once again turned into a postseason superhero. How can the New York Knicks slow him down in the second round?
Regardless of the time of year, Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler is one of the preeminent two-way players in the NBA.
But, for some reason, when the calendar shifts to playoff time, something happens to Butler. He becomes something else. He becomes someone else.
But what is that reason? How does a player go from averaging 22.9 points per game in the regular season to 37.6 points per game in a gentleman’s sweep against a title favorite? How does Jimmy Butler transform into the man known and feared by all as “Playoff Jimmy?”
And more importantly, what can his second-round opponent, the New York Knicks, do to try and stop him?
The secret sauce for Jimmy Butler
It’s hard to remember after all the accolades and monster performances, but once upon a time, Butler was a 22-year-old rookie averaging 2.6 points per game. He’s a self-made superstar in every sense of the word. Nothing has ever come easy for him. He’s had to work his butt off to be recognized next to the game’s elite.
And while it is always easier to be naturally gifted, Butler’s rags to riches tail gives him a leg up over many of his peers. His countless trials and tribulations have groomed him into a master of capitalizing on micro-advantages.
The seven-game format of the playoffs affords defenses the opportunity to narrowly tailor their game plan to their specific opponent. These game plans often call for sophisticated schemes intended to make life more difficult for the opposing team’s best players. Opportunities for clean scoring chances become scarce. To be clear, they still exist, but they are far harder to pick out.
Butler’s uphill journey to the top of the NBA food chain has made him adept at identifying and pouncing on these opportunities, these micro-advantages.
For instance, the Heat’s aggressive defensive style creates a ton of turnovers (second in opponent turnover percentage), which, in turn, leads to plenty of transition opportunities. Butler (89th percentile in transition efficiency in the regular season, per NBA.com) is able to make the most of these chances by leaking out and sealing his man behind him to eliminate the potential for a chase-down block.
Thanks to his combination of size (that makes him too big for most guards to defend) and speed (that makes him too fast for most bigs to defend), Butler is one of the game’s best at attacking mismatches off-the-dribble.
As a result, the Heat were constantly screening for Butler in hopes of getting him matched up against one of the Milwaukee Bucks’ weaker on-ball defenders. To their credit, the Bucks did a good job of not taking the bait and keeping their defensive ace Jrue Holiday attached to him. The problem is by trying so hard to avoid switching into a mismatch, Milwaukee opened up these little pockets of opportunity. And as the ultimate micro-advantage capitalizer, Butler was all over this, using those little windows of indecision to launch his attack.
Butler averaged 9.6 free throw attempts per game for the series, and while a lot of it was done by going downhill in a manner that would make even Charles Barkley proud, he was also able to use his jumper to earn chances at the charity stripe.
Much to the chagrin of their fans, the Bucks defended most Butler pick-and-rolls involving big man Brook Lopez in their token drop coverage. This helped Lopez stay near the paint, but it also gave Butler a free shooting range for pull-up target practice.
On the series, Butler posted an effective field goal percentage of 55.6 on pull-up 2s and 3s. For reference, that’s a higher percentage than guys like Trae Young, De’Aaron Fox, Jayson Tatum, and Kevin Durant have shot this postseason.
As Butler built up comfort in his jumper, the defense’s angst grew as well. Butler sensed this and decided to pull a trick from midrange assassin DeMar DeRozan’s bag — using his pump fake to draw fouls.
His best micro-advantage-creating tool is his endless movement without the basketball. Most offensive stars — especially the ones who are the subject of a playoff defense’s grueling game plan — become docile without the ball in their hands.
Butler is not most offensive stars. He’s one of the best cutters (75th percentile) and offensive rebounders (95th percentile for his position, per Cleaning the Glass) in the association. So, whenever Holiday’s hellacious on-ball coverage was becoming too much for him, Butler could simply give the ball up and survey the landscape for little creases to achieve separation without the basketball.
It might sound silly because of their different body types and the fact Butler isn’t a great shooter (career 32.3 percent from 3). But his constant off-ball movement isn’t all that different from Stephen Curry’s constant marathon racing around the court. Both of them place a never-ending strain on the defense because even when the ball isn’t in their hands, they are a threat to score.
And you know what? Milwaukee must agree with that analogy because by the end of the series, they started guarding him like he was the South Beach reincarnation of Curry. After spending most of the series doing all they could to avoid sending multiple defenders at Butler, Milwaukee finally caved in during overtime of Game 5.
In the first clip, the defense was so worried about Butler’s movement on the baseline out-of-bounds play that both Holiday and Lopez lunged toward him, leaving a runway for Cody Zeller to waltz his way to the rim on the dive cut.
In the second clip, Milwaukee was so worried about Butler doing anything — on or off the ball — that they decided to face-guard him 40 feet away from the rim. He doesn’t even have that kind of range!
Butler thrives in the playoffs because he’s able to sense and carve out opportunities (the micro-advantages) that other offensive stars can’t. Head coach Erik Spoelstra (a basketball savant in his own right) called Butler a genius, and this is exactly what he was talking about.
So what do the New York Knicks do?
One of the variables that really hurt head coach Mike Budenholzer and the Bucks in this series is how long they waited to show Butler extra attention.
Like we said, for most of the series, Milwaukee tried to keep actions “flat” — meaning they wanted to contain them to a 2-on-2 dance and have the other defenders stay home. Their gamble was that it is better to let one man try and beat you on his lonesome than to overhelp and put your defense in automatic scramble mode. Clearly, that wager didn’t play out the way they’d hoped.
In their series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Knicks did a great job of sending multiple bodies at Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell. This got the ball out of their hands and forced their teammates to try and create off of a 4-on-3 advantage. Cleveland’s role players couldn’t do it, and the Knicks are in the conference semifinals as a result. Maybe this strategy is replicable against Butler and his less-than-stellar supporting cast.
The one issue with that strategy is that New York, along with sending two defenders at Mitchell and Garland, was also able to pack the paint because of Cleveland’s poor spacing. This made conceding the 4-on-3 power play much more tenable for the Knicks because they could ensure that the interior was still fortified.
Theoretically, Miami’s spacing is also poor (27th in 3-point percentage in the regular season). But the Heat are just coming off a series where they shot a playoff-leading 45 percent from downtown (the second-place Phoenix Suns only shot 40.7 percent).
Will the Heat regress to their regular season norm, or will they continue their hot shooting and throw a wrench in New York’s plans? The answer to that question will play an important role in how the Knicks ultimately decide to guard Butler.
Regardless of their decision, they better be air-tight in their execution. Because if Butler can find even a sliver of daylight, Playoff Jimmy could emerge once more and take over the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
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