Butler's Heat chapter slammed shut long before Warriors' lifeless loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
MIAMI – Boos and cheers alike met Jimmy Butler in his return to the Kaseya Center on Tuesday night.
A mixture of both as a Miami Heat tribute video honoring Butler played during pregame introductions. Boos whenever Butler touched the ball once the game began, and cheers whenever he missed a shot or made a mistake. The loudest cheer of all regarding Butler was a play involving Andrew Wiggins, the main player the Warriors traded to the Heat to acquire Butler on Feb. 5.
With the Warriors beginning the game uninspired and again having to swim upstream like their previous game against the Atlanta Hawks, Butler had his best chance of getting his new team going in what looked like a wide-open fastbreak. That didn’t stop Wiggins, who chased down Butler and blocked his dunk attempt, keeping the ball inbounds as it wound up going to the Heat.
That’s the kind of night Butler and the Warriors endured in a 112-86 loss against the Heat.
Did boos outnumber cheers? Yes, undoubtedly. Did the arena ever feel hostile or over the top?
Not once.
“Miami is a great place to live, and some people don’t ever seem too amped up around here,” coach Steve Kerr said. “They’re living the good life. It really wasn’t that rabid of an environment. It was typical Miami.”
Butler sat alone at the end of the bench as the pregame tribute video played, looking up to watch but showing little, if any, emotion. Iconic moments from his tenure that lasted over five seasons were remembered fondly as they should be. He sipped his cup, put his Chapstick on, waved to the crowd for a second, and then it was time to play the game.
Throughout the week and days leading up to Butler’s return, he maintained the message that Tuesday night wasn’t any different than the Warriors’ previous 71 games. Just another Tuesday night, in his words. The past chapter is meant to be closed, continuously turning the next page of his personal story.
The same sentiment was shared in the visiting locker room by Butler after the loss, too.
“Like I always say, I got a lot of love for the city, for the fan base here,” Butler said. “Video was nice. I won’t say that there’s a lot of emotions, though. I think I went into this day level-headed. We wanted to win the game, and it didn’t go as we planned.”
Coaches and teammates commended how Butler handled himself. He personally thanked them before and after the game for how they went about the situation as well. His time in Miami the past few days has been spent around his children, being by the water and enjoying a combination of sunshine, Bigface Coffee and dominoes.
The weirdest part of all for him was arriving to the game. Pulling into the visitor’s parking lot and finding his way to the opposite locker room he was used to going to since the summer of 2019.
Before the game, Butler didn’t mingle with former teammates and coaches the way Wiggins did with the Warriors. There weren’t any daps between Butler and Bam Adebayo, or even he and Tyler Herro. He was only seen briefly conversing with two Heat players: Kevin Love and Terry Rozier.
But that doesn’t mean all Butler’s love for the Heat is lost.
“It took me back to some good times when I was wearing a Miami Heat jersey,” Butler said. “Very appreciative of those times to help me become the player that I am in this league, the individual that I am in this league. The teammate, the leader – all of those things.
“I don’t think I could be who I am today without my opportunity here.”
The Warriors going into Tuesday were 16-4 since trading for Butler, losing three games in which he played. The Heat have spiraled, going 5-16 post-Butler. Once the game began Tuesday night, though, records went out the door.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra had his squad ready to roll. The Warriors trailed 7-0 through the first two minutes. They eventually woke up and made it a two-point game with under two minutes remaining in the first quarter. Not once did the Warriors lead.
Miami led by as many as 28 points, holding the Warriors to their second-lowest scoring night of the 2024-25 NBA season. The Heat shot an astonishing 68 percent from three (17 of 25), further emphasizing the Warriors’ Swiss cheese defense the last two games, both losses to teams with losing records. On a night where Steph Curry was subjected to street clothes on the bench nursing a pelvic contusion that has kept him out of the Warriors’ last two losses, the three-ball made all the difference.
Butler scored the Warriors’ first two points of the night but never got going. He finished with 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting and was a minus-19 in 29 minutes.
The bizarreness of the box score wasn’t Adebayo’s game-high 27 points, or Herro’s 20, but Alec Burks adding 17 while going 5 of 7 from deep. The 13-year veteran who played 48 games for the Warriors in the 2019-20 season would have led Golden State in scoring Tuesday night.
As the final buzzer rang, Butler didn’t even turn towards the Heat bench, opting to walk straight down the tunnel and back to the Warriors’ locker room.
“I don’t know what it’s like to return to a place,” Draymond Green said. “So I can’t necessarily speak to that, but I can imagine it’s emotional. He was fine. He was into the game, he didn’t make it about himself. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t get the win for him.
“We played like s–t, but I thought he handled it well.”
In the final moments of the Warriors’ loss, as Heat fans headed towards the exit, one older man stood out in particular. Wearing a Miami Vice blue shirsey, it appeared he was one of the few still supporting Butler with a pink No. 22 on the back. The nameplate was the difference.
Instead of “Butler” across his back, using white athletic tape and black marker, the fan had written “Wiggins.”
This night wasn’t about closure, nor was it really about honor. The book has been slammed shut on Butler’s time representing the Heat, and now he and the rest of the Warriors have to move on even quicker to avoid disaster over the final 10 games of the regular season.
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