Jimmy Butler's playoff explosion was fueled by cappuccinos

Butler told Sports Illustrated that before the playoff game where he dropped 56 points on the Milwaukee Bucks, he drank "at least seven and possibly up to nine cappuccinos." Fueled by a massive amount of caffeine, Butler went out and scored the fourth-most points in NBA playoff history against the top-seeded Bucks on the way to the NBA Finals.

The Heat star is very serious about coffee. During the 2020 NBA bubble in Orlando, Butler ran his own coffee shop out of his hotel room called Big Face Coffee. Every coffee drink cost $20 and he only accepted cash – no IOUs! He also refused to give change, which made the enterprise a real profit-maker, because players got exactly $1,020 per day for meal money – so Butler was often pocketing hundreds.

Since then, Butler has turned Big Face Coffee into an actual brand, selling gourmet coffee and merchandise. Butler is so serious about his caffeination that he traveled to coffee farms in Ecuador and Colombia last summer in search of the perfect beans. He's regularly practicing his latte foam "art" and during the Finals, he had a Big Face Coffee pop-up shop across from the Heat's arena.

Butler's coffee drinking and entrepreneurship are only ramping up. Before the Bucks series, he even rented a coffee grinder from a fan in Milwaukee, much to his children's chagrin after Butler went off.  

As the Heat prepare to defend their Eastern Conference title, the only way to stop Butler might be to break his French press.