His current coach calls him “maniacal and sometimes psychotic,” but Jimmy Butler’s first NBA coach will have to devise a plan to stop the familiar All-Star guard as the latest potential MSG playoff villain in the second round.
Butler, who played for Knicks coach Tom Thinodeau with both the Bulls and the Timberwolves, carried the eighth-seeded Heat to an upset of the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference in a stunning five-game elimination of Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.
Based on Miami coach Erik Spoelstra’s description following Wednesday’s comeback win in overtime in Milwaukee, the 33-year-old Butler isn’t as likely to wilt under the bright lights of New York as Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers did in the opening round.
“A lot of guys play the game of basketball in this league. He competes to win. That’s a different language,” Spoelstra said. “He’s desperate and urgent and maniacal and sometimes psychotic about the will to try to win.
“He’ll make everybody in the building feel it. And that’s why he is us and we are him. That’s the way we operate as well. The psychotic meets the psychotic. And it gets a little bit whatever.”
The six-time All-star scored 56 points in the Heat’s Game 4 victory, and he followed that by hitting a late shot to force overtime in the series clincher, finishing with 42 points to set up a second-round matchup with Thibodeau and the Knicks.
“I’m not worried about Thibs,” Butler said afterward. “Honestly you’re asking the wrong person. I don’t care who we play. We’ve just got to beat them four times.
“I understand you’re trying to hype it up. But we’re going to go out there and compete. We’re going to be the better group. And we’re going to be together through good and through bad, just like we were in this series. So whether we play in Miami, whether we play in the Garden or we play in Rucker Park, we need to win four games.”
Butler became a first-time All-Star and won the league’s Most Improved Player award under Thibodeau with the Bulls in 2014-15.
They spent four seasons together in Chicago and were reunited in Minnesota in 2017 when Thibodeau traded for Butler while the Knicks’ current bench boss was the coach and head of basketball operations with the Timberwolves.
By the start of Butler’s second season there, however, he expressed unhappiness with the commitment of the T-Wolves’ young players, notably Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
His demand for a trade was granted in November 2018, when Thibodeau shipped him to Philadelphia, where he played out that season before signing as a free agent with the Heat the following summer.
Still, Thibodeau regularly speaks highly of Butler whenever the teams have met during the regular season.
Following Butler’s 56-poit performance earlier this week, when it began to look as if the teams could meet in the second round, Thibodeau said, “It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen him do that. He’s an unbelievable talent. … If I’ve had a relationship with you, I want all those guys to do well, except when we play him. I know what he’s trying to do. And I know what we’re trying to do.”
And now instead of trying to game plan against Antetokounmpo and the Bucks, who swept the Knicks (3-0) in the regular season, Thibodeau’s team will face Butler and the Heat beginning Sunday at the Garden.
The Knicks took three of four head-to-head meetings, with Butler averaging 22.5 points per game.
“We don’t listen to the outside noise. And we will not listen to any outside noise,” Butler said. “We’re going to do what we do. We’re going to learn from our mistakes and get better, and take the next series like we took this one.”
