When the shock and sting of Derrick White’s buzzer-beating putback, Jimmy Butler walked into the Miami Heat’s locker room, faced his teammates and shouldered the blame. The Heat had nearly overcome one of Butler’s most inefficient playoff games of his career to eliminate the Boston Celtics and advance to the NBA Finals. Instead, Butler and the Heat were left to ruminate on how close they were to avoiding making the wrong kind of history.
They have one more chance to do so in Monday’s Game 7 in Boston, but Miami will need a better performance from Butler, who shot just 5 of 21 in Saturday’s 104-103 loss.