Putting Jimmy Butler’s 56-point playoff masterpiece for Heat into historical perspective

Jimmy Butler still insists Playoff Jimmy isn’t a thing.

“It’s not a thing,” Butler said just minutes after becoming only the sixth different player in NBA history to score 56 or more points in a playoff game. “It’s not. I just be hooping.”

But Playoff Jimmy sure seemed like a real thing on Monday night, when Butler turned in arguably the best playoff performance in Heat history and one of the best playoff performances in NBA history to lead the eighth-seeded Miami Heat to a 119-114 comeback win over the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks at Kaseya Center in Game 4 of their best-of-7 first-round playoff series. The Heat is on the brink of eliminating the Bucks, with a 3-1 series lead.

Poll: Was Jimmy Butler’s Game 4 vs Bucks the best playoff performance in Miami Heat history?

Butler finished the victory with 56 points, nine rebounds and two assists while shooting 19 of 28 (67.9 percent) from the field, 3 of 8 (37.5 percent) from three-point range and 15 of 18 (83.3 percent) from the foul line in 41 minutes. He scored 22 points in the first quarter and 21 points in the fourth quarter for the highest-scoring and second-highest quarter of his NBA career, respectively.

“I’m just hooping, playing basketball the right way, taking the shots that the defense gives me, staying aggressive,” Butler said, making it all sound so simple as the Heat now travels to Milwaukee for its first of three opportunities to eliminate the Bucks in Game 5 on Wednesday (9:30 p.m., NBA TV and Bally Sports Sun). “A lot of shots went in tonight. But my teammates kept feeding me the ball, telling me to attack. Plays were drawn up for me, they were looking for me in transition. When you got teammates like that, good things happen.”

Takeaways from Jimmy Butler’s night to remember to lead Heat to 3-1 series lead over Bucks

Butler re-entered the game in the fourth quarter with the Bucks ahead by 11 points with 8:11 to play. He scored 21 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field, 1-of-2 shooting on threes and 8-of-9 shooting from the foul line over the final eight minutes to lead the Heat all the way back for the win.

The Heat closed the game on a 32-16 run after Butler entered in the fourth quarter. Butler, alone, outscored the Bucks 21-16 while playing the final 8:11 of the contest to push the Heat to the miraculous comeback win.

“It just shows you if you have the right grit and perseverance, you can find different ways to win even if it’s ugly and then it always helps to have a guy like Jimmy Butler,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “... There’s a brilliance about how he competes at the game of basketball. I think that probably sums it up the best.”

For historical perspective on Butler’s all-time great playoff moment on Monday:

▪ It’s the highest-scoring playoff game in Heat history, breaking the previous record of 49 points set by LeBron James in Game 4 of a second-round series against the Brooklyn Nets in the 2014 playoffs.

▪ It’s tied for the second-highest scoring performance in Heat history, including the regular season, matching the 56 points Glen Rice scored on April 15, 1995. Only James has scored more points in a game, recording 61 points on March 3, 2014.

▪ It’s the highest-scoring game of Butler’s NBA career, surpassing his previous career-high of 53 points that he scored on Jan. 14, 2016 as a member of the Chicago Bulls.

▪ It’s tied for the fourth-highest scoring playoff performance in NBA history. Michael Jordan (63 points), Elgin Baylor (61 points) and Donovan Mitchell (57 points) are the only players who have scored more points in a playoff game.

▪ Butler is the fifth player in NBA history to score at least 55 points while shooting better than 65 percent from the field in a playoff game. The others to do it are Charles Barkley, Jordan, Allen Iverson and Damian Lillard.

“I’m not ready to rank anything yet,” Spoelstra said when asked to compare Butler’s Game 4 display to other great Heat playoff moments. “We still have some work to do. I don’t think Jimmy would want me up here ranking this performance or anything. He views everything the way a head coach does. He’s not relaxing.”

Butler is averaging 36.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, five assists and 1.8 steals per game while shooting an ultra-efficient 62.8 percent from the field and 9 of 17 (52.9 percent) from three-point range through the first four games of the series.

Butler is the second player in NBA history to average at least 36 points, five rebounds and five assists per game through the first four games of a first-round series. Jordan is the only other player to do it, pulling it off in 1989 and 1990 with the Bulls.

“Lions like to hunt, man,” Heat forward Kevin Love said of Butler. “They make their kill and they want to keep hunting. That’s what he does.”

Making Butler’s excellence even more impressive is the fact that it’s coming against a Bucks defense that closed the regular season as a top-five unit. All-NBA caliber defender Jrue Holiday has been on him for most of the series, too.

Holiday has spent 173 possessions as Butler’s primary defender through the first four games of the series, with Butler scoring 49 points on 19-of-34 (55.9 percent) shooting from the field in that time, according to NBA tracking stats.

“He’s a hell of a defender, I’m not going to lie,” Butler said of Holiday. “But I just think it’s tough whenever somebody is making everything that they put up there. But I’m going to attack no matter what and I hope everybody else does. But I will give him his props on that, he’s a hell of a defender. Physical, plays hard, never takes a possession off and those are the guys that I want to compete against.”

Butler is also delivering on the other end of the court, spending time on each of the Bucks’ best players. During the series, Butler has defended Holiday for 92 possessions, Brook Lopez for 45 possessions, Khris Middleton for 41 possessions and Giannis Antetokounmpo for 19 possessions.

“He’s just all over the place,” Spoelstra said of Butler after Game 4. “He really is a case study for young players coming into this league of how you can impact winning. So, yes, now everybody will pay attention because he scored 56. But there was the two sides of the ball and the incredible conditioning.

“In this game, Jimmy literally guarded every single person on their roster at some point. So, you can point to the 56 points or you can point to the two-way basketball, where he’s defending literally every single situation and that’s what the greatest winners in this league do.”

Butler has the Heat just one win away from becoming only the sixth No. 8 seed to eliminate a No. 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs since the current 16-team NBA playoff format was instituted for the 1983-84 season.

“I think this is where all the best players, they show up and they show out,” Butler said of the playoffs. “I’m not saying I’m one of the best players. I just want to be looked at as such.

“I think coach Pat [Riley] and Spo wanted me here for a reason. I feel like this is part of that reason. But the job is not done. So we don’t want to get comfortable. We got one more to get.”