Miami Heat: Can Jimmy Butler produce in the playoffs in spite of shooting woes?

Jimmy Butler has been a crucial addition to the Miami Heat, playing a major role in their surprising campaign. Can he continue to produce in the playoffs?

The Miami Heat have been one of the NBA season’s biggest and best surprises. When they started the season with suspensions to  James Johnson and Dion Waiters and a DNP for Jimmy Butler, it seemed like more the injuries and related misfortune that had plagued them the season before was back once again.

As it happens, things couldn’t have worked out much better. Waiters’ absence opened the door for Kendrick Nunn to flourish, and when Goran Dragic suffered an injury in the early goings, Duncan Robinson stepped up and the Heat took off thanks in large part to their undrafted backcourt.

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Of course, Jimmy Butler did make his return after sitting out the first three games of the season due to the birth of his child, and he was the missing piece of the Miami Heat puzzle.

Butler’s contributions this season have been remarkable, but not entirely for the best of reasons. While he impacts winning as a guy like Jimmy Butler must, he’s struggled offensively. His scoring average is in line with that of his career (20.2 points per game this season and 21.1 points per game since 2014-15), but he couldn’t buy a jump shot.

Butler’s effective field goal percentage over the span of 2014-15 through 2018-19 was a reasonable 49.7 percent. Not great from the field, but passable, and he shot 35.1 percent from 3-point range and 49.0 percent from 2-point range. In combination with his playmaking and defense, it’s a menial rate that you’ll accept as a team.

This season, however, his shooting has fallen off a cliff. His 2-point shooting has stayed constant at 49.4 percent, but his 3-point shooting is troubling. Jimmy Butler is shooting just 24.8 percent from behind the arc in 2019-20.

Fortunately, his volume is low. He’s taking just 3.1 attempts per game from long range, and his teammates are more than making up for his inefficiency as they’re tied for first place in 3-point shooting at 38.3 percent.

He also doesn’t dominate the ball like many first scoring options do, with a usage rate of just 25.2 percent, so he isn’t hurting the Miami Heat offense at this point. The Heat score 113.4 points per 100 possessions when Butler is on the floor, and that’s a rate that would be equivalent to the second-highest scoring team in the NBA, the Houston Rockets.

Butler has been able to make up for this awful 3-point shooting by getting the free throw line at will. In fact, among all rotational players who averaged more than 15 minutes per game this season, he has scored the highest percentage of his points from the line. 37.3 percent of his points came at the stripe, miles ahead of the second-place Joel Embiid (30.2 percent) and third-place James Harden (29.5 percent).

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His free throw rate (the number of free throw attempts he takes per field goal attempt) is a staggering 67.9 percent. That means for every 100 field goals he attempts, he attempts (almost) 68 free throws. This rate is his career-high by a wide margin, dwarfing his previous best in 2016-17 of 54.0 percent.

Since Jimmy Butler’s ascent to stardom from obscurity in 2014 up until the end of last season, his free throw rate was 47.9 percent.

While this is impressive, we’re nearing the playoffs where free throws will be harder to get but all the more necessary if his 3-point shooting continues to misfire. Using this same 2014-15-through-present era as a measuring stick, Butler’s free throw rate dropped from 47.9 to 37.4 percent.

If the playoff whistle was tight in more traditional seasons, with home fans pressuring referees into favorable calls for their players, the Miami Heat should be concerned that things will tighten up even more. Officials won’t be tempted to mollify non-present fans, and a straight-across whistle becomes more likely.

With less chaos and carnage pushing officials into making those superstar, home-court calls, Jimmy Butler may not be able to rely on a friendly whistle. Without that advantage, it’s possible that his production may plummet, and without their best player being able to hit jump shots or get to the free throw line, the Miami Heat may be in for a brief and unpleasant playoff experience in the NBA’s Disney restart.