Loud, Fast, And Keep Going

Happy Memorial Day! Great to see you! So, now that you’re here, it’s time to attack: Do you ever think about instigators, or why a lot of people die unnecessarily? Did you see the BARRY finale? What do you fear the most, and why is it the mirror? Anyway, haha, *high five*, let’s honor some of what we thought were the dead, but they’re still living.

Jimmy Butler has fulfilled his mission and obligation as The Man for the Miami Heat. Via the way the game is played today, et cetera, he found himself at the foul line with three seconds to go, the exact three seconds and three shots he needed to close out the Boston Celtics and end any speculation that the best-positioned team in NBA history to recover from down 3-0 would do so. He nailed all three, Michelobs surely on the brain.

Game 6 for Miami felt like – to me, to my neighbor, to my friend Doctor Dan[1], to everybody watching – a game that the Heat had to win, and if they didn’t, it was over, but in another direction. At home, Miami had the chance to close the series because of what they’d done already.

You, an 8-seed going against a 2-seed, win three games in order to have the chance to have three more games to win, any of them, against a better-seeming team (no team has ever seemed better than a team that had Jimmy Butler on it, to Jimmy Butler, who is on the other team).

Jimmy Butler, though, was horrendous in Game 6. Playoff Jimmy/Jommy/However You Brand Himmy was not That Guy, going 5-21 from the field. Yes, he had 11 rebounds; yes, he had eight assists. He didn’t altogether look like the player who puts everybody on his back and unravels everyone else, at least not for the first 47 minutes and 56 seconds.

Back and forth did the Heat and Celtics go. Duncan Robinson hit some shots you’d nod and feel good about in November; similarly, Robert Williams finished some shots that would, predictably, elicit the praises of Shaq and Charles Barkley immediately following the game. Big men love big men.

When I get to the bottom

I go back to the top of the slide

I find that every time I think I know something is going to happen with certainty, in art or in music or in [anything you, reader, might need], it’s almost always immediately proven wrong. I love that. Trying not to get too therapy-brained about any of this – this being sports, or #sportsball, or music, or life, or – but things meant to be enjoyed tend to be good.

You wanna see a dead body? Ehh, well, kind of, what are you doing this weekend otherwise, but really: I want to see one of the best basketball teams ever assembled – these Boston Celtics, with Jaylen Brown’s contract situation hanging over them – try and actually pull this off.

Down nine with a little under three minutes to go, Gabe Vincent worked Al Horford perfectly to hit a layup. Butler hit a three shortly thereafter to draw it to a four-point game, Marcus Smart guarding him. Moments later – meaning with under a minute to go in regulation – Jimmy executes a perfect switch, drawing Derrick White and Marcus Smart away as primary defenders[2] and finding himself alone on Al Horford. A dance and a foul, and then it’s a one-point game.

Down one, Jayson Tatum took Jimmy Butler to the house, unsuccessfully. After grabbing his own rebound, Bam Adebayo blocked his shot. Still, the Heat were down a point.

Following Marcus Smart’s journey to the foul line[3], putting the Celtics up two with 16.9 seconds left, the Heat took the ball, by which I mean Himmy took the ball. Here’s the trick he pulled against himself: he switched off of Derrick White, who has been having an unheralded and underrated series doing much of the dirty work, to get back on Al Horford (Ex-Process-era Sixers Guys have a lot of things they need to work out amongst themselves). Jimmy works Horford over to the corner, and after some deliberation, it ends up being a three-point foul.

If Playoff Jimmy Butler exists, he’s the entity who stood at the foul line down two with three shots ahead of him. I had been pacing my living room for several minutes at this point: exactly the kind of impression you want as a host. Jimmy Butler nails all three, maybe maybe maybe (I’m so sorry, Russell) the coolest basketball player who’s ever existed in my mind at the end of that trip to the foul line. Laughing out loud, I finally sit down.

Well, if ever someone was going to save their job, it would be Joe Mazulla in this series. He called the timeout, advancing the ball in the process. Derrick White inbounded the ball to Marcus Smart, of all people, who junked a three in exactly the way you’d want to junk a three if Derrick White were to rebound it with the tips of his fingers and seal the win[4]. Boston Celtics 104, Miami Heat 103.

Game 7: tonight. Do they do that there? The Celtics, and the Heat, are about to find that out. How many stories are you telling yourself simply to get by?

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[1] Congratulations!

[2] He was doubled for almost the entirety of the fourth quarter, which [spoiler alert!] is why the Celtics’ strategy ended up working.

[3] Different story entirely, but: probably the Celtics player on the floor that you would want at the foul line in this case, if you’re the Heat, even now.

[4] “The Gift,” via basketball.