5:39pm: Butler is considered day-to-day, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN and Marc J. Spears of Andscape, who hear from a team source that the swingman felt soreness in his knee when he woke up on Tuesday.
Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald reports that there is no testing scheduled for Butler’s knee. Chiang adds that Oladipo is set to start in Butler’s stead tonight against Atlanta.
2:58pm: Already missing Kyle Lowry for Game 5 of their series vs. the Hawks on Tuesday, the Heat have announced (via Twitter) that they’ll also be without their other six-time All-Star, Jimmy Butler.
Butler, who hadn’t previously been listed on the injury report, has been ruled out due to right knee inflammation.
Butler has been the Heat’s best player through the first four games of the playoffs, averaging 30.5 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 5.3 APG, and 2.8 SPG on .543/.438/.794 shooting in 37.3 minutes per contest.
Having opened the series with Victor Oladipo and Markieff Morris both out of the rotation, Miami will have to lean more on its depth with two starters unavailable, relying on a handful of players – including Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent, Duncan Robinson, and Oladipo – to attempt to replace Butler’s scoring and play-making.
The Heat hold a 3-1 lead over the Hawks, so they have a little margin for error, but things would start to get uncomfortable if they had to travel back to Atlanta for Game 6, especially if there are no guarantees that Butler and/or Lowry would be ready to play on Thursday.
It won’t make any difference! Hawks can’t win with Tray bad shoot selection.
As a hopefully Sixers fan, I know we desperately need to win the next game otherwise it’s going to be really embarrassing having been 3-0 up.
But looking ahead it’ll most likely be the Heat but they will be tired and bagged up by the sounds of it. Lowry and Butler both having issues. I’m confident in saying if we make it out we will get past the Heat even with Embiid and his finger issue. If the Raptors make it out they would get past the Heat. That home court in Canada, Nick nurse is an excellent coach and they play amazing defence and rebound the ball really well
Embid has already checked out, and Harden is perennial postseason failure. They have no shot vs Heat.
Knew he wasn’t right. Was not aggressive at all last night. Should of sat. Then maybe could have been better for gm 5. Heat are done without Jimmy. Celts seem the healthiest at this point. It’s best to see them go against Warriors. I want to see a good Finals.
The Celtic D vs The Warrior O
Let’s go