Following the Golden State Warriors‘ 126-121 heart-palpitation victory over the Memphis Grizzlies in the West’s Play-In Tournament on Tuesday, Jimmy Butler, as he has done pretty much since he first stepped foot on Golden State soil, spoke of Stephen Curry with a superhero reverence.
“That’s a Batman if I’ve ever seen a Batman,” Butler told TNT after the win, which gives the Warriors the No. 7 seed in the playoff bracket.
It’s true, Curry remains something between a mortal man and a basketball god. He finished with 37 points, 15 of which came in the fourth quarter including a pair of ice-water 3s inside the final two minutes of a one-possession game.
But Butler is no Robin. The Warriors don’t have a Batman, they have two Batmen, and it’s because of those two that not only are they marching on to face the second-seeded Houston Rockets in the first round, but remain an honest threat to beat any team from here on out in any single series.
Butler, who finished with 38 points, seven rebounds, six assists and three steals, was extraordinary from the jump on Tuesday. The pick-his-spots patience was still there, but as was the case in the regular-season finale against the Clippers, Butler tapped into the much more aggressive version of himself that, for as good as he’s been with Golden State, everyone has been waiting to see.
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Butler forced his way downhill all night, and rather than entering the paint with one eye already looking for a kick-out, he was hell bent on getting to the rim. Cutting. Finishing through contact. Dunking. Working to get the one-on-one matchup he wanted and then attacking to score first and pass second. He got to the free-throw line 18 times. That is oxygen for a Warriors offense that used to be way too prone to suffocating in its own dry spells.
Playoff Jimmy has indeed been activated as Butler combined with Curry for 75 points. That’s a lot just to get through one play-in game, and it won’t get any easier from here. Don’t get too caught up in this idea that the Rockets don’t have a go-to scorer. They are an outright nasty defensive team with plenty of guys who can put the ball in the basket. Curry is probably already sweating thinking about Amen Thompson blanketing him for a six- or seven-game series.
Pretty much everyone thought the Warriors would roll past Memphis. They were a seven-point favorite, a big line in a game like this, and they barely survived even being aided by a Ja Morant injury. Already FanDuel is listing the Warriors as a -205 favorite against the Rockets. Once again, that is too lopsided. The Warriors might win, but there’s a good chance it’s going to take a similarly Herculean effort from Butler and Curry to do so. Even that might not be enough.
But for now, Golden State took care of the task at hand. The Warriors secured their spot in the playoffs and probably got the first-round matchup they preferred all along, even though they certainly sold out to win that final game vs. the Clippers that would’ve resulted in facing the Lakers in the first round. The Warriors are also on the opposite side of the bracket from the Thunder, who are clearly the best team in the West and probably the best team overall even if the masses remain hesitant to fully recognize them as such.
The Warriors are still a long shot to get to a conference finals or certainly an NBA Finals. Again, just getting past the Rockets could be a tall order. But their best blueprint for success is in place. The bracket broke right, and it’s obvious that Butler, Curry and Draymond Green are still up to the biggest challenges, especially with the way Golden State’s young role players have been stepping up.
So buckle up. Because if you think Tuesday night was intense, things are about to get wild in what is going to be a murderous Western Conference playoff gauntlet.
