The Miami Heat’s play this season would’ve done Dr. Jekyll proud.
Although, the regular season squad was consistently inconsistent. Injuries were a problem, of course, but nobody on the team could hit a shot. The Heat went from one of the best regular-season three-point shooting teams in 2021-22 to one of the worst this past season.
However, this team made it to the NBA Finals without Tyler Herro or Victor Oladipo and with a gimpy Jimmy Butler. The role-player pumpkins reversed the clock and turned back into Cinderellas (in the first three rounds, anyway), Kyle Lowry remembered how to play basketball, and Coach Erik Spoelstra worked his usual magic.
So how do you grade the season-end performance? Playoffs are more meaningful but less reliable barometers due to sample size. For most players, though, the positive ended up outweighing the negative. How could it be otherwise on a team that made the Finals?
Let’s start with the confident engine powering Miami on both ends.
Jimmy Butler: A
A Second-Team All-NBA nod and some legendary playoff performances cement this as one of the best seasons in Butler’s storied career. His 23/6/5/2 line, impressive as it is, doesn’t do nearly enough to describe his impact on the Heat.
At this point, the pattern is well established. Butler spends the season deferring to teammates to build their confidence before taking the reins in the postseason. A dominant first-round series against Milwaukee, a team he’s struggled against at times, seemed to auger a myth-making performance for the ages.
35 points and 11 assists in Miami’s shocking Game 1 win against Milwaukee. 56 against the Bucks in Round 1’s pivotal game 4. The alley-oop game-saver in Game 5. 35 more points in Miami’s massive Game 1 victory over Boston.
Some of Butler’s best moments didn’t even come in wins. He absolutely dominated the fourth quarter against Boston in Game 6 before Derrick White’s last-second tip-in saved Boston’s season (for two days). And after three and a half terrible quarters, Butler suddenly caught fire at the end of the Finals Game 5, staging a furious one-man comeback that fell just short.
Although the Heat eventually succumbed to the superior and healthier Nuggets, Butler’s skill and determination earned him even more fans (an array of incredible memes and trash talk didn’t hurt his Q-score).
Unfortunately, a badly sprained ankle incurred in the second round never quite healed, and Butler wasn’t able to consistently summon his best throughout the postseason. He still made a major impact on both sides, but he was clearly laboring.
It’s hard to fault Butler for an ankle turn, however, and his season will be one Heat faithful will never forget.