Jimmy Butler is one of the best two-way players in the NBA. You wouldn’t be able to convince him that after his rough analysis of his play against Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James on Wednesday night.
To put Wednesday night in simple terms, the Chicago Bulls as a whole, were terrible.
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Not only did the Bulls shoot 40.5 percent from the floor, they missed 15 of their 22 three-point attempts, got out-rebounded by eight (45-37) and committed 12 turnovers in a 106-91 Game 2 loss to Cleveland.
Oh, and that guy with the white headband that wears No. 23 for Cleveland went for 33 points and made it look relatively easy at certain points of the game.
The blame for LeBron James’ big night fell on Jimmy Butler, courtesy of Jimmy Butler himself.
"“I don’t care about no headband,” said Bulls guard Jimmy Butler, who defended James for most of the game. “He can play with or without the headband. He’s a great player, headband or not. He outplayed me tonight.”-Jimmy Butler on defending LeBron, ESPNChicago.com"
James got off to a blazing start with a 14-point first quarter, along with distributing the ball to teammates like Iman Shumpert, who drained four of his seven three-point attempts on Wednesday night.
The Bulls not only gave up 38 points in the opening quarter, they found themselves down 20 after the first quarter, thanks in large part to James’ hot start.
"“He was aggressive, but I wasn’t aggressive on defense,” Butler said. “It was easy for him. He got to the rim too easily. Lots of layups, reckless fouling, he did what he said he was going to do.”-Jimmy Butler on LeBron, ESPNChicago.com"
Personally, it wasn’t just Butler’s mentality and lack of production defensively. It was also the fact that LeBron James is the best player on the planet and Cleveland knew they didn’t want to fly to Chicago for the next two games of the series down 0-2.
Butler did struggle against James, but then again, there’s not too much you can do as a defender when LeBron does things like this:
Later in the first quarter, Butler did turn up the aggressiveness, but paid the price when he couldn’t get to the pass from Cavs guard Matthew Dellavedova, and James took advantage.
Early the game, Cleveland did an excellent job of using Timofey Mozgov to screen Butler when he was guarding James in their pick-and-rolls to free up James offensively.
In Cleveland’s first offensive set of the game, James gets the ball on the left wing, and utilizes a Mozgov screen that allows him to get to the baseline and for Mozgov to roll to the rim for the game’s first bucket.
LeBron James takes the screen from Timofey Mozgov, goes to the baseline, throws a nice bounce pass to Mozgov off the roll, and Mozgov lays it in.
(Photo Credit: YouTube user, Ximo Piero)
You can watch the play here:
Cleveland did what they had to do in one of the premier matchups of the entire series. The Jimmy Butler/LeBron James matchup is one that will help decide this series.
Butler was great down the stretch in Game 1, the Bulls win by seven. Butler struggles to get going on both ends in Game 2, Cleveland wins by 15.
Game 3 will be the turning point in this series. Not only will Butler be motivated off a poor defensive performance in Game 2, he’ll likely be receiving his NBA Most Improved Player Award in front of the United Center faithful on Friday night.
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