NBA FINALS: LAKERS VS. HEAT

October 5, 2020

Jimmy Butler

Miami Heat

Practice Day

Q. After last night is there a sale at Big Face the morning after?

JIMMY BUTLER: I don't do sales. I don't do free coffee. We're going to do everything the exact same like we're supposed to do on the basketball floor. We're going to keep our prices at 20 bucks.

Q. How has stuff like that helped kind of make this stay as tolerable as possible?

JIMMY BUTLER: Just like Jae said, it helps to take your mind away from the game. Gives us something else to talk about, compete at a little bit, and just another way to talk through the game, send over coffee, send over wine, a beer, whatever it may be, and more than anything, it just brings us together even more because we really do enjoy being around one another.

Q. Considering the stakes and the stage and you obviously being a couple men down, is that the best game you've ever played?

JIMMY BUTLER: Probably not. I was really good whenever I was in high school, and I played in this league where I played against all 45-year-old men and I really dominated whenever I was like 17. So this is up there, but back then I was killing it.

Q. From the time you came into this league, late first-round pick, I think 30th, and finding your way into that Bulls rotation to all the stops you've made since, was there a time where you changed your own expectation for yourself, where you were like, I can not just be an All-Star, I could be X, I could be a max player, et cetera?

JIMMY BUTLER: Definitely. I think it helped to have like Luol [Deng] and Ronnie Brewer and Coach Adrian Griffin. They were always telling me, "You're gonna make your mark in this league. You deserve to be here. You belong here." That's when I really started to be like you know what, like if these guys are telling me that, they've been here way longer than I have, they know what it takes, that's when I started to think, maybe you can become a decent player in this league.

I always say yeah, I'm gonna make it to the NBA Finals. I want to play in the NBA Finals. I want to win a championship. That time for me is now. So talking about it then, being in that position now, I'm here for a reason, just like everybody else is.

Q. What do you think NBA fans, the world has learned about you these last few months on and off the court that maybe they didn't get an opportunity to know before or perhaps had the wrong idea before?

JIMMY BUTLER: For me, that I'm just all about winning. I'll do whatever you ask me to do, if you can guarantee me a win. I realize that nothing is guaranteed. But I'll do whatever you ask me to do to put my team in the best position to win. That's it.

Q. With so much love for the three right now, can you take me into the mentality of your mid-range game and how you used it to get a triple-double and not shoot a three and still have a brilliant old-school game, I guess?

JIMMY BUTLER: I mean, I think it's easy whenever you have the guys that I have around me. So many good shooters that you can’t leave. Like I say, I have the easy job. They give me so many gaps to get into the paint, to shoot a pull-up J, to get to the free throw line. I'm going to continue to play that way. I take what the game gives me. Whatever my teammates ask me to do, I'm pretty sure if they ask me to go out there and make a couple threes, I'm capable of it, but if it's not broken, don't fix it.

Q. Could you speak to the impact that Jae and Andre have had on the series so far, and just what you've come to expect from those guys since they joined the team?

JIMMY BUTLER: I mean, they're winners. They're winners. They've got a difficult job in guarding AD and then guarding LeBron and then going down there and having to make shots and do everything for us all over the floor. All the stuff that you don't see on the stat sheet is what those guys do for us, and they're all winning plays, every single one of them. We respect that. We love that. We wouldn't be here without them. And I'm just -- I tell them as much as I can how much I appreciate them, how much I appreciate playing alongside those guys and for what they do for me, for our young guys and just for the organization as a whole. I do.

Q. What's been your day-to-day approach in the offseason and then during the season in film sessions, practices that has gotten you to where you are with your performances?

JIMMY BUTLER: Just work, make sure your body is ready to go. I've got some -- James Scott is who I do all my agility with and weightlifting with whenever I'm back home, Armando Rivas, he's here with me to make sure my body is working the way that it's supposed to, I've got Coach [Chris] Quinn, Coach O [Octavio De La Grana], DC [Dan Craig]. I've got a lot of people that really help me to be great and to be ready to perform at the highest level. So all in all, there's a lot of work that goes into it, like everybody is doing right now, but I think I've got the best of the best around me.

Q. You've made it plain over the year with Miami that there's a certain way you like to play, particularly on the offensive end and it's much more of a collective than maybe the dominant way you did last night, and Coach told us, I'm checking my notes here, "we don't care what he thinks," that it's time for you to continue to be this dominant. Is that the only trigger you need is Coach and the staff and your teammates not caring about the way you would like to play and demanding that type of dominance?

JIMMY BUTLER: I think they know what buttons to press to get me to play the way that they want me to play. But I just want to win. I don't think it's just winning basketball all the time. I don't. I think winning basketball is Duncan is going to go off for six or seven threes, Tyler can do that, K-Nunn can do that, Jae is going to have a big night. We're all locked in defensively. To me those are the best wins.

We celebrate every win, but when somebody else has a great night that nobody expected, I love it. I really do. Like you could say I'm supposed to do what I did last night, but I don't think so. I think I'm waiting on Tyler, Duncan, Bam, one of those guys to have a night to where I'm just like, I get the opportunity to play with that? What a blessing.

Q. To that, one, are you willing -- if this is the way it's going to have to be, are you willing to do that the rest of the way if that's going to be what it takes? I know you want your other guys -- you've tried to get them involved all year, but are you willing if Game 3 plays out again in 4, 5, 6 or 7, do you accept that?

JIMMY BUTLER: I have to. I think as long as we win, everybody is happy with that. But we've got to win. Whatever it takes to get to that point, yeah. I can't say that that's what it's going to come to, but if Coach would say, hey, I need you to do this, our guys would say we need you to do this, I've got to go out there and do it. I've got to make sure that we win.

Q. As I'm sure your body knows you have played almost every minute of the last two games. You got fouled 11 times last night. I don't know how many times you got hit. You spoke about what your trainer did with you in the offseason, but what's the process last night, this morning to start rebuilding the machine and get ready for tomorrow?

JIMMY BUTLER: A lot of rest, a lot of treatment, a lot of everything. But I think a lot of it's mental. You know your body is going to be hurt, but you've got to tell your mind and tell your body to cut it out. And I think that's where I'm at at this point.

Everybody is hurting, not just me. Everybody on my roster, everybody on the Lakers' roster. We're all nicked up. We've all got some pain. But we're all coming out there to compete.

Q. Following up, you were described in an article that you were indefatigable, that you can't be fatigued. How long was it for you to recover because you had to play the most minutes. You played the most minutes as a Heat player regular season or playoffs personally last night. How long does that take for you to recover and how do you feel?

JIMMY BUTLER: I think -- I actually think I recover quite fast because all I can hear is Spo over and over again telling me how I'm not tired. That's literally what he tells me in the middle of the game. I'm just like, all right, Coach, I guess you know how I'm feeling, yeah, I'm not tired. So going into it, it's like, you can't be tired, you can't be banged up. These guys need you. They're counting on you. If they see you, that's how they're going to be.

So to the best of my ability, I'm working on my body. I go in there this morning, I see Tyler in there, I see Duncan in there, I see Meyers in there, I see everybody in there. So I know that they're feeling the same way I am, but they're getting ready to go again.