'Playoff Jimmy' Butler vows to bounce back from subpar Game 5 for Heat

MIAMI — This one is personal for Jimmy Butler.

For 48 hours, Butler has had to stew in the general perception that the Knicks did something special to contain him in Game 5. He’s had to hear all about the perseverance of Quentin Grimes, who played all 48 minutes and was pasted to him like an early-morning shadow. Most painfully, Butler has had to watch the video in which Grimes gets flattened by Bam Adebayo's screen but manages to pop up and make a momentum-changing strip against Butler in the final two minutes.

Butler, as he prepared to try to eliminate the Knicks in Friday’s Game 6, hasn’t said much to his teammates about any of this. But then again, he hasn’t had to.

“This is Playoff Jimmy,” Adebayo said at the team’s shootaround Friday morning. “We know the type of mindset he gets into when he feels some kind of disrespect or he feels like he isn’t being who he is. I think the biggest thing for Jimmy is I think he’s going to come out in that mold tonight. And we’ll see a different type of him that we didn’t see in New York.”

Can the Knicks survive the return of Playoff Jimmy and force a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden? The answer to that may depend on whether the Knicks can produce a Playoff Jalen, Playoff Julius and Playoff RJ.

The odds aren’t with the Knicks. Only 13 teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a series, a mere 4.7% success rate. If the Knicks are going to do it, they need big nights from their top three scorers — Julius Randle, Jalen Brunson and RJ Barrett — if they want to force a Game 7. Because it sounds like Butler is determined to make everyone forget about Game 5.

Even with that 19-point game, Butler entered Kaseya Center on Friday averaging 31.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 1.9 steals and shooting 55.1% from the field and 39.4% from three-point range in nine games during this year’s playoffs.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “Jimmy is about winning and doing whatever is necessary.”

Part of the reason Butler has averaged nine points more in the playoffs than he did in the regular season is that the Heat have needed him more than ever because Tyler Herro has been out with a broken hand. But his teammates believe it’s more than that. Butler, they say, just plays his best when the team needs him most.

Butler, in a way, pretty much guaranteed after the Game 5 loss that his team would not be coming back to New York.

“If [Spoelstra] tells me to play 48 minutes, I’ll be suited and booted and ready to do that,” Butler said after the loss. “And we’ll win.”

When Butler plays well, the Heat win. Butler led the Heat to an upset of the top-seeded Bucks in the first round, scoring 56 and 42 points in the final two games of the series.

It’s no coincidence that Game 2, which Butler missed with an injury, and Game 5, the one contest in which he scored fewer than 20 points this postseason, are the Heat’s two losses in this series. In Miami’s three wins, Butler has dominated on both sides of the court, playing tough defense and averaging 26.7 points.

There’s a certain amount of security that Butler’s teammates feel every time he enters the game. Heat forward Kevin Love said there’s no one else he would rather be on the floor with at the end of a game. Love even went so far as to say Butler reminded him of “another player I played with for several years,” alluding to LeBron James with whom he won a title in Cleveland.

“He’s [Butler] the best closer in the game, in my opinion,” Love told ESPN. “He's somebody who's special, brings it every single night, sets the tone for us. And he does it in different ways. When the ball is in his hand, whether you come and double or not, he's going to make a play, we're going to get an open shot.

“You almost have to pick your poison with him.”

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.