After missing Game 3 of the Warriors‘ first-round series vs. Houston due to a pelvic contusion, Jimmy Butler was back on the floor for Game 4 on Monday and played a key role in Golden State’s narrow victory. Speaking to reporters after the game, the star forward admitted he was in “a lot of pain,” per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.
“Did you see me on that chase-down of Dillon Brooks?” Butler asked Anthony Slater of The Athletic, referencing a second-quarter play when he had to sprint after Brooks to stop the Rockets forward from finishing an easy break-away layup (video link).
Butler got there and committed a foul to prevent the basket, but his mobility looked compromised and he wasn’t running full-speed, as he acknowledged after the game.
As Slater relays, head coach Steve Kerr told reporters that Butler would “probably miss another week or two” as a result of his injury if this were the regular season, which Butler didn’t dispute. “But it’s the playoffs and he’s Jimmy Butler,” Kerr said. “This is what he does.”
“He played through the injury,” teammate Draymond Green added, per Youngmisuk. “Was beautiful. But what his presence does for this team is humongous. The first three quarters, he couldn’t move. Not sure how he started moving in the fourth quarter, but he never complained. He stuck with it.”
Butler, who finished with a team-high 27 points, also recorded six assists and five rebounds while getting to the free throw line 12 times. He came up big defensively too, soaring in to grab a crucial rebound off a missed shot by Alperen Sengun that would’ve given the Rockets the lead with five seconds left in the game (video link).
As Green observed, Butler seemed to get better as the game progressed, scoring 14 of his points in the fourth quarter and not spending any team on the bench during that final frame.
“Your body starts to warm up. You start to feel a little bit better. You gain confidence,” Butler explained. “People start talking to you. Then good things happen.”
Asked whether his reference to “people talking” to him was about Brooks, Butler confirmed as much. When a reporter asked a follow-up question about whether he and Brooks were having “fun” going back and forth at each other, Butler made it clear that wasn’t how he viewed it.
“No, we’re not having fun,” Butler said (Twitter video link). “Get me on the record with this: I don’t like Dillon Brooks. We’re never having fun. I’m a fierce competitor. He’s a fierce competitor. There ain’t nothing fun about that. … I don’t think anybody is trying to be friends with anybody on either team, that’s for sure.”