“Camera Angles Perfectly Caught Him”: Heat Guard Spill the Beans Around Chris Paul and Jimmy Butler Altercation

Miami Heat are going very strong in the post-season. They are up against the Indiana Pacers, whom they have defeated thrice in the past four meetings, in a matter of 10 days. But it is another rivalry that is making headlines. 

We all remember the feud between Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler and Indiana Pacers forward T. J. Warren. Trash talks and nasty exchanges followed it later. But Jimmy Butler had a similar incident with Oklahoma City Thunder’s veteran Chris Paul. Let’s get to know more about it from Jimmy’s teammate.

Miami Heat guard revealed his side of the story

It was during the Orlando Bubble seeding game between Heat and OKC on August 12. It was a closely fought battle that the OKC won 116-115. Chris Paul could manage only 12 points in the game and appeared loaded with anger.

At one point in the game, when Heat were leading 66-59, CP3 threw the ball at Duncan Robinson. Now, Jimmy made a case out of this and tried seeking revenge in his own style.

Duncan remembered the incident and said in an interview, “For one, he [Chris] had both teammates wide open that he could have just thrown the ball to and he just selected to throw it off me. Also, the camera angles perfectly caught him jarring at me. So it definitely looked like some back and forth.”

He further praised Jimmy for holding his back and noted, “But then of course Jimmy just took matters into his own hands, which I was appreciative of and then also obviously the post-game comments he had in my defense were also I was appreciative of.”

Calling it a “back-and-forth banter”, Duncan accepted that he was also somewhere at fault and explained what exactly happened. He revealed, “Andre set a flair screen, he switched out to me. I should have shot it. He had one of those aggressive closeouts. So I didn’t. Then he poked it out, and he immediately started barking at the referee, ‘it was off him’, and it blatantly wasn’t. So I said to him, ‘stop!’ but I didn’t mean in a disrespectful way. Then he snapped at me and said ‘stop!’ This is where it went someplace it shouldn’t.”

The aggression is working well for them in the post-season

Jimmy G. Buckets, later on, spoke on the beef and said unapologetically that he is not in the Bubble to make friends. This aggression is visible in his game as he has posted 46 points so far in the two games. On the other hand, Duncan Robinson has created 3-point history for himself. He scored 24 points and also dropped seven out of eight 3-pointers. He became one of the two players in the post-season history to convert seven or more three-pointers without going for a two-pointer. 

The Heat are a great side with huge potential coming from the likes of Tyler Herro, Goran Dragic, and Bam Adebayo among others. They will try to make the tally 3-0 when they meet the Indiana Pacers on August 22 at 3:30 PM ET, TNT in the NBA Playoffs 2020.