Who says you can’t get better with age? Jimmy Butler is 33 years old. He’s in his 12th NBA season, but you won’t find a better performance on his career résumé than what the basketball community witnessed on Monday night against the Milwaukee Bucks.
Taking his game to new heights with the NBA Playoffs raging in full force, Butler put the entire Heat team on his back to set a new team franchise record for points in a single playoff game, with 56. The previous mark was held by LeBron James, who scored 49 back in 2014 against the Brooklyn Nets in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
It’s also Butler’s new career high in points across both the regular season and postseason play. This was in large part to scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter alone, willing the Heat to victory as Miami takes a commanding 3-1 series lead over the top-seeded Bucks.
Butler’s 56 points are the fourth-most in NBA Playoff history, behind Michael Jordan’s 63, Elgin Baylor’s 61, and Donovan Mitchell’s 57. Jordan and Baylor are Hall of Famers. Perhaps Butler can get there someday too.
In all, Butler scored 56 of the team’s 119 points on the night, or 47% of the total tally for the Heat.
What Butler did was simply unfair. The Bucks had no answers for the Tomball, Texas native.
Butler sank 19-of-28 shots, going 3-of-8 from distance while adding 15 points from the charity stripe. It’s not often when we see a player score twice as many points as the number of shots taken, but that’s exactly what Butler accomplished on an extremely efficient night. In the end, Butler made history, but we’re guessing all he cares about is the win.
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