American Professional Basketball (NBA) Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler (34, USA) led the miracle of the ‘8th seed’.토토사이트
Miami defeated the Boston Celtics 103-84 in the final 7th game of the 2022-23 NBA Eastern Conference Finals (7 matches, 4 wins) held at TD Garden in Boston, USA on the 30th (Korean time). Miami, who won games 1-3 and gave up games 4-6, eventually advanced to the finals with 4 wins and 3 losses. Miami, which came to the top in the 2012-13 season, is challenging to win the finals in 10 years.
Miami, ranked 7th in the regular league, advanced to the playoffs (PO) as the lowest ‘8th seed’ after winning 1 win and 1 loss in the ‘Play-in Tournament’. In the first round of the PO, they defeated the Milwaukee Bucks, who had the highest overall win rate (70.7%), 4-1, and in the second round, they defeated the New York Knicks 4-2. Then, the ‘upset (rebellion of the lower team)’ continued, defeating even the ‘2nd seed’ Boston.
Butler led Miami to the Finals. AP = Yonhap News
Boston, who was aiming for a 4-game winning streak after 3 consecutive losses for the first time in NBA history, could not overcome the ‘0% probability’ like the 150 teams before it. It was painful for Boston that Jayson Tatum only scored 14 points after injuring his ankle in the beginning of the game.
Butler didn’t look like his nickname, ‘playoff Jimmy’, in the 3rd to 5th games earlier. On this day, he recorded 6 assists and 7 rebounds, along with 28 points, the most by both teams. In the fourth quarter, 79-66, he made a middle shot, followed by a two-handed dunk.
Butler was named Eastern Conference Finals MVP after beating teammate Caleb Martin 5-4. Butler responded with a goal to Grant Williams’ provocation in Game 2 against Boston, then put their foreheads together and taught them. Earlier, in the 4th game of the 1st round against Milwaukee, he scored 56 points, and just before the end of the 5th game, he also scored a tying alley-oop shot.
Butler resembles Michael Jordan (59), the “king of basketball,” and even has a strong look in the clutch. In the US, there were jokes and even conspiracy theories saying, “Isn’t he Michael Jordan’s hidden son?” A composite picture of Jordan and Butler’s face appeared, and the nickname ‘Jimmy Jordan’ was attached.
A composite photo of Jordan’s and Butler’s faces. photo twitter capture
In real life, Butler abandoned his family and ran away when he was young. His biological mother kicked 13-year-old Butler out of the house, saying, “When I look at your face, I think of my husband.” In 2005, when he was 16 years old, Butler, who moved from street to street and from friend’s house, ended up at the house of Jordan Leslie, with whom he played basketball. Leslie’s white mother, Michelle Lambert, was raising her seven children, but she cared for Butler’s circumstances and raised them as her own. Butler is the real-life protagonist of the movie ‘The Blind Side’, about a black boy abandoned by his parents who is adopted by a white mother and becomes an NFL (American Professional Football) star.
Butler, who was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in the NBA in 2011, didn’t even get tattoos on his body, following Lambert’s teachings. He later went to visit his birth mother and forgave her and gave her a gift. However, Butler doesn’t like to talk about his unfortunate childhood for fear of weakening him.
Butler and Lambert (right) who raised him like a child. photo sns capture
In 2018, when he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Butler was criticized for being a ‘old man’ because he had spoken bitterly to Carl Anthony Towns, a ‘young blood’. However, he is a sincere ‘romantic’ in basketball. These days, I praise my Miami colleagues. Martin, Max Struss, and Duncan Robinson, who were not selected in the draft, also stood up like weeds like Butler.
Butler, who said after losing to Boston in the Eastern Finals last season, “It’s going to be the same next year, and then we’ll make it,” Butler kept his word. Butler defeated Boston and led them to the finals for the first time in three years.
From the 2nd of next month, Miami will play the final (7 matches, 4 wins) against the Denver Nuggets, the champion of the Western Conference. Butler and Denver’s Nikola Jokic (28, Serbia) will have an ace showdown. In the NBA, which started in 1946, the ‘8th seed’ has never won a championship. The New York Knicks, the eighth seed in 1999, also lost to San Antonio. “No one was satisfied,” Butler said. We’re not playing to win the Eastern Conference, we’re playing to win the Finals.”