Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler could be sidelined indefinitely with an MCL injury, per NBA insider Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Butler suffered a knee injury in the first half, but stayed in the game, finishing with 19 points. He is due to undergo an MRI, Charania reported.
The Heat will need to win their next game, either against the Chicago Bulls or Atlanta Hawks, to earn the No. 8 seed.
Of course, Miami advanced to the NBA Finals last season, via the play-in tourney. But without Butler, a repeat would be remarkably challenging.
After all, he recently told Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report/TNT that he “turns into the greatest basketball player in the world” in the postseason. That may not be true, but he is indeed up there.
“You mean how can I turn into the greatest basketball player in the world all of a sudden?” Butler said. “I don’t know, man. I’m just different. I think this is when you’re supposed to be playing your best basketball and you have to find a way to get your team to win these games when you’re talking about the playoffs coming around. But even right now, you’re getting everybody into their roles. You’re getting in a rhythm. And with my music, I’m getting in my rhythm. Speaking for myself and everybody else in this locker room, we want to win. That’s our focus.”
Butler joined the Heat in the summer of 2019 via a sign-and-trade deal with the Sixers. Miami has reached two NBA Finals and three Eastern Conference Finals in the Butler era.
“You just keep a couple things in your pocket all year long, and whenever you do it at a certain point of the year, they deem it something else like ‘Playoff Jimmy,’” Butler said. “But it’s just me playing the long game throughout the season. I know that I’m really good at this game, and I know I could do a lot of things well on the basketball court. There are just times when you have to step it up a notch. You can’t show the opponent everything now. You have to always keep people guessing.”
Ashish Mathur contributed to this report.
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