It’s unclear whether injured Miami star Jimmy Butler will be ready to play Tuesday’s second-round Game 2 against the Knicks until just before tipoff.
What’s clear is the Heat are going to be ready to go, Butler or no Butler.
“He’s getting treatment around the clock. We probably won’t have any update until before the game,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said Monday in a ballroom in the teams NoMad hotel.
“We’ve been in this type of situation the last couple months, with guys being injured and out, and that’s why you build a team,” Kyle Lowry said. “You don’t build a one-player roster, you build a 17-man roster, 15-man roster, for guys to be able to step up.
“You’ve got an irreplaceable guy, an unreplaceable guy like Jimmy? If he goes, he goes. If he’s not, we’ve got to find a way to go out there and do our jobs still. We’ve still got to go hoop.”
Butler suffered a sprained right ankle in Game 1 while being fouled by Josh Hart, with Miami listing him as questionable for Tuesday night.
The Heat’s playoff focus and ability to weather injury isn’t in question.
“Yeah that’s our mentality: next man up,” Max Strus said. “But hopefully he can play. We’ll see what happens. But whatever we’ve got to do to get the win, we’ll do. We’ll figure it out.”
Miami’s much-ballyhooed Heat culture has been put to the test, that next-man-up mentality honed through a spate of injuries this regular season.
“He’s been such an important piece to us, what we’ve been doing getting to this point but also … how good of a job he’s done getting everybody involved to prep for games like this where he might not be involved and for other guys to step up,” Caleb Martin said.
“That’s what’s been one of our biggest attributes all season is the next-man-up mentality. So this’ll be one of those games for that approach.
“He’s a core piece to us offensively and defensively, so that’s obviously a prep that’s going to be very important for us. A lot of it is also a mentality thing where guys are going to have to step up, which we’ve been known to do. We’ve had games without Jimmy before, and obviously it’s a little bit of a different prep, but he involves everybody so much that we should be able to handle ourselves with or without him. So we’re going to do our best.”
The Heat are not only bracing for life with or without Butler, but also preparing for a Knicks squad with or without Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson, dealing with their own ankle woes.
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“You have to be responsible. It would be irresponsible not to prepare for all the different scenarios,” Spoelstra said.
“Yeah, exactly. Definitely prepare for both, because knowing Jimmy he might mess around and try play,” Martin said. “We don’t know yet. So we’ll see what type of state he’s in with that ankle. But we’ll be ready. We’ll prep for both I’m sure.”