Film Room: How Jimmy Butler made an impact without scoring in his return
Jimmy Butler had one of his worst shooting performances this past Tuesday night against the Toronto Raptors, but was still the best player on the floor. How? Let’s take a look at the film to find out.
Jimmy Butler’s shooting statistics looked horrendous on Tuesday night against the Toronto Raptors in the Bulls’ 11th straight victory over one of the so-called “best teams in the East that can challenge the Cleveland Cavaliers”.
In almost 38 minutes of action (which is a whole other story, being that Butler is playing hurt), Butler shot just 2-of-10 from the floor and missed all three of the 3-point attempts he took. The curious thing about his night was that he still scored 19 points.
Butler controlled the game with 19 free throw attempts, connecting on 15 of them, along with dishing out 12 assists (tied a season-high for him) and racking up four steals in the 104-95 win for the Bulls.
In this Film Room session, we’ll take a look at how Butler, despite his shooting woes, still dictated how the game would go, specifically in the situations where the Raptors looked to take away any and all lanes and air space.
They won’t always be pretty, but making the right play is always good
Butler has only had two games of 10+ assists this season, and on Tuesday night, he got off to a good start (even if it didn’t look that great).
In this half-court set, Taj Gibson comes to set a screen for Butler as Jakob Poeltl hedges the pick-and-roll look from the Bulls. Butler drives right past DeMarre Carroll with the entire lane completely in from of him. As he drives, the lane closes quickly with Jonas Valanciunas coming to stop Butler from getting all the way to rim.
With three guys converging on him, Butler puts up a shot fake and looks to actually take a shot attempts on the second look. Whether it was planned or it was a complete accident, the ball is kicked back to Taj Gibson all by himself at the nail with Poeltl helping on Butler’s drive, and Gibson drains the shot.
The ol’ penetrate-and-kick to the left corner for 3
When you look at the overall shot chart for the Bulls this season, there’s only one spot they’re shooting substantially above the league average: the left corner 3.
On this drive, Butler once again faces a lot of chaos on his drive as expected, including DeMar DeRozan coming completely off Rajon Rondo (for obvious reasons) in the right corner.
With seemingly nowhere to go driving towards the baseline and no good look at the rim, Butler elevates above the baseline and kicked to Bobby Portis in the left corner for 3, which he made.
A big reason why Butler was able to make this pass was because Lucas Nogueira (the guy assigned to Portis with the big hair) got caught ball-watching on the play and it gave Butler the opening he needed to drain one of the two 3-pointers the Bulls made from the left corner in the game.
Sometimes, Rajon Rondo can make a perimeter shot
The headline for this play may be deceiving, but trust me … Rajon Rondo takes and makes a 3-pointer in this set. It actually happened.
This play by Butler was simple, but smart.
Butler looks to get to the middle of the floor — the one place teams don’t want to allows drives and to operate — but as he does, he’s greeted by DeRozan and Carroll who look to shut down his drive.
It doesn’t take much to make the right play here with this much space left for Rondo, so Butler makes the simple pass and Rondo connects on a triple.
“If the others beat us, so what?”
This play was hilarious looking at it on the film.
Notice how all five Raptors on the floor are watching the ball in Butler’s hands. Also, notice how Kyle Lowry is just camped out in the lane with Nogueira watching Butler, leaving Denzel Valentine completely open in the corner.
With everyone watching Butler, he kicks to an open Lopez in the paint, who is then greeted by DeRozan (coming off of Rondo on the perimeter), but Lopez is strong with the ball, takes a dribble to reset himself, and hits the hook.
Butler gets Valentine all the space he needs
It’s been a struggle for Denzel Valentine shooting the basketball (at the NBA level) this season.
But, with the huge Bulls lead from earlier gone, and the score tighter at 88-81 with a little over five minutes left, Valentine stepped up and hit a big triple to extend the lead back out to 10 points.
The play was created by Butler, who once again recognized his space was collapsing, so he had to make a play. Butler takes the screen from Cristiano Felicio and looks to either throw the lob back to Felicio or kick it down to Michael Carter-Williams (who was open because Delon Wright came off of him on Felicio’s roll to the rim).
With neither option open on the drive and DeRozan coming off his man once more, Butler kicked to Valentine, and the rookie made the clean look thanks to Butler’s penetration that got him the space to hit the shot.
Butler’s final assist seemingly ices the game
The game was virtually over at this point with the Bulls leading 101-93, but this final assist from Butler was the one that basically put the game away.
Carroll and DeRozan looked to double Butler, which basically left Doug McDermott free to roam wherever he wanted to. You’ll also notice that as Butler drives right, Carter-Williams tries to move Felicio with him to the other side of the floor to give Butler more room to operate. Lowry sticks to Butler with Carroll and DeRozan, but Butler goes airbourne on the pass, finds McDermott, who gets in the lane for the finish.
It’s not that Jimmy Butler is a fantastic passer by any means, but he’s not as bad as you’d think. Plus, it doesn’t help that eight of his teammates are shooting under 38 percent from the field off of his passes.
On nights where his shot isn’t falling or is hard to come by, it’s good for the Bulls that Butler can still find a way to be impactful outside of shooting free throws.