NBA FINALS: LAKERS VS. HEAT

October 4, 2020

Jimmy Butler

Miami Heat

Game 3: Postgame

Miami Heat - 115, Los Angeles Lakers - 104

Q. What's it like having the game of your life when your team absolutely needs you to have the game of your life in that situation?

JIMMY BUTLER: We won. I could care less about a triple-double. We play this game to win. I'm glad my teammates got a lot of trust and faith in me to go out there and hoop like that, but like I always say, you guarantee me a win, I could care less.

Q. Second game in a row you played 45 minutes, you went to the free-throw line double digit times, you got beat up a little bit. Can you describe a little bit about what your offseason training regimen might be to put you in position at this point of the season to do that?

JIMMY BUTLER: My trainer James Scott does a great job of making sure that I'm strong enough to play through contact and just be conditioned. That's what we do here in the Heat. We pride ourselves on that and I love it. I love the work and I tell Coach all the time, I'm ready for this. Like the biggest stage, whatever you ask me to do I can do.

Q. Congrats on the win. There was some back and forth there with LeBron. He said some time in the first quarter that you guys were in trouble and you ended up saying the same thing later on in the fourth quarter. How is the competitive nature between you and LeBron been like in these Finals?

JIMMY BUTLER: I mean, that's competition at its finest. I think LeBron has got the best of me way too many times. I respect the guy for it, but this is a different time now, a different group of guys that I have around me, and we are here to win, we are here to compete. But we're not going to lay down, we're going to fight back in this thing, even it up 2-2.

Q. You knew coming into tonight you were going to carry the offensive load and defend LeBron for the entire night. Do you find pockets within the game to have to choose to be assertive, not necessarily to save your body but to conserve your energy so you have something left in the last four or five minutes?

JIMMY BUTLER: No. You got to empty the tank on every possession, especially playing against a great team like the Lakers.

But we got a good team. Like I say, I got the easy job. These guys create so much space for me, I get to shoot it whenever I'm open, pass it whenever I'm not. I really do have the easy job. But none of us, none of us are ever going to leave anything in the tank. We're going to lay it all out there on the floor.

Q. Tyler Herro is the youngest player to ever start an NBA Finals game. How did you see him from Game 2 to Game 3 learn and improve and come out the way he did tonight?

JIMMY BUTLER: I saw him just hoop, which is what I tell him every single chance I get. This isn't a big stage for him, this is just basketball. Do what you've been doing all year long and we're going to live with it. We ride with you, we're supporting you and we're constantly giving you confidence. There's no shot that you've never seen that you don't like, and we love you for that. So you take those because that's what's going to help us win games, compete, guard. And being the youngest to play or start, it's another day for him. It is.

Q. You kind of gave a shrug to Tim about your performance. You did the same in the Eastern Conference Finals. What is it about you where you just don't care? And it seems like you almost would prefer if it was Tyler's night or if it was Kelly's night or whoever else is scoring for you to win?

JIMMY BUTLER: Everybody remembers winning, that's it. They don't care how many points you score, they only care if you won or lost. For us we're all about winning. We are. I say it all the time but I mean it. The guys that we have, the group that Coach Pat and Coach Spo put together it's always to win, nothing else.

So I hope the next game I score zero and y'all talk all you want to talk and we win so I come up here and say the same thing.

Q. I know this win is bigger than Goran and Bam, but how much does it mean to you to kind of obviously get this win for them, and even buy more time for them for a possible return?

JIMMY BUTLER: It means a lot. I go out there and I go to war for those guys because whenever they're out there, they're going to war with and for me. Whatever they ask me to do, I want to do it to the best of my ability, obviously. They asked me to go out there and win, like they did the previous two games, and tonight I couldn't hold up my end of the bargain. Tonight I did that -- we did that, I should say, and give them an extra couple days and get those guys back.

Q. First I just wanted to clarify, it looked like you said "You're in trouble." Is that what you said?

JIMMY BUTLER: That is what I said.

Q. And then secondly you said last game or after last game you guys would have to play damn near perfect in order to beat these guys. Where does this fall in terms of playing close to damn near perfect?

JIMMY BUTLER: First of all, I'm not just out there talking trash because I'm not. LeBron said that to me at the end of the first, that's what happened. I just said it to him in the fourth quarter.

And talking about playing damn near perfect, we did a good job of that tonight. We rebounded the basketball, which is what we always talked about. We got back. But I think guys are starting to realize how much we belong on this stage and that we are in The Finals for a reason. To tell you the truth, I think when we get these other two guys back, they're going to make everybody's job including mine a lot easier. So I'm excited, but we still got to play better moving forward.

Q. In the fourth quarter obviously throughout the game you guys went to the moves that you usually go to. How fun is it to challenge guys to stop you when they know what you're going to do, you know what you're going to do, but you can still do it?

JIMMY BUTLER: The offensive player is always at the advantage, as long as you can get to your spot, you do what you really want to do. But like I always say, like my teammates do that for me, you can't leave those guys, because if you do I'm passing it to them. Half the time it's a bad pass and it will be at their feet, but they always find a way to make the shot.

I have so much confidence in this group of guys, as does Coach Spo, it's so fun to play with them guys, even better to win with them.

Q. At the end of the game Tyler hit a shot there and he kind of had this scowl on his face, just to see him kind of end the game on that note, exuding that confidence and being kind of fired up. I don't know if you saw exactly the face he made, but I know it's going to be on replays everywhere.

JIMMY BUTLER: I saw it. He did that thing with his lip, I saw that.

Q. Yeah, yeah. Your thoughts on that and to see him kind of finish the game strong, I know it was kind of rough shooting day for him early.

JIMMY BUTLER: Tyler's always going to be Tyler. I think we all love him for that. But like I tell T all the time, he's my third favorite Herro. His little brother Myles is definitely my favorite, so I'll talk more to Myles tomorrow than I will to Tyler because I think he is the reason that Tyler plays like that. He understands that he looks up to Tyler, and so Tyler goes out there and plays with so much confidence because he knows that his brother is watching.

Q. I know you clarified the LeBron interaction, but I'm wondering like the meaning of that statement, "They're in trouble," for all of you guys, is this the kind of game that leaves you feeling that way; and in terms of your own belief, you know, is that huge? And also as a quick follow-up, did you notice in the last second Bron ended up, they made a few subs and he was in the back before everything wrapped up, did that get your attention at all and does it mean anything?

JIMMY BUTLER: No, it means nothing. I, we stay focused on ourselves that's how we got here. But we're just settling down. I think it's a lot of bright lights, it's a big stage for almost everybody except for Coach Spo, Andre, OG [Udonis Haslem], and nobody been here before. But we're coming to realize that we belong here. We're a really good team and we can win, as we have shown tonight, if we play basketball the right way, if we do what we say we're going to do. So everybody is just becoming more and more comfortable as the days go by.

Q. AD and Bron the first two games really kind of sliced you guys up with their interior passing. What did you do to take that away as a team tonight?

JIMMY BUTLER: We put bodies on bodies. We played a lot more man, which I think we all agreed was a good call on coach's part. He's great at adjusting. We rebounded the basketball. We made a lot of things difficult for them, all hands on deck, getting into the paint and I think that it's going to be even better whenever we get Bam back.

Q. Duncan said just a few minutes ago that you kind of live for those moments when everybody jumps off the bandwagon. It seems like people have jumped pretty far off the Miami bandwagon when you guys fell down 2-0, and you were nine point underdogs in this game tonight. How does that fuel a competitor like you to put together a game like you did on this stage?

JIMMY BUTLER: It doesn't. I don't care. We don't, we really don't care. We could care less if they pick us to win. Obviously ya'll picking us to lose. We're just going to go out there and compete, do what we know that we're capable of. I will say, Duncan needs to shoot the ball a lot more. He needs to hunt shots because he's going to be a reason that we win one of these games. He's going to hit six, seven 3s and I'm going to jump up and down and I'm going to give him a big hug, maybe a slight kiss on the back of his head, because I know how important that that guy is to our team.

Q. After falling in Game 1 and 2, how were you guys able to still maintain that confidence in your play and just who you guys are as a unit?

JIMMY BUTLER: We're always confident. We know that we can win any game if we rebound, if we don't turn the ball over, if we get back, things like that. But we got a group that, like we're, I don't like the word "underdog" so -- nobody's picking us, there you go, nobody's picking us. And we really don't care. We're going to go out there and compete that's what we have been doing all year long, all playoffs, the time that we have been here. Stay confident because we know we're a good team.