Miami’s Jimmy Butler, center left, has words with Boston’s Grant Williams during the second half Friday in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals in Boston. Miami won to take a 2-0 lead in the series. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
Grant Williams provided a spark for the Celtics in his return to the rotation on Friday night, but the lasting memory of him in their Game 2 loss to the Heat won’t be fond.
Williams poked the bear, and it didn’t end well for the Celtics.
The bear was Jimmy Butler, and an incident between the Heat star and Williams helped Butler lead Miami to another win in Boston, sending the Celtics into a 2-0 series hole in the Eastern Conference finals.
The encounter came midway through the fourth quarter. Williams hit a 3-pointer over Butler to push the Celtics’ lead to nine. As they ran to the other end of the court, Williams got in Butler’s ear with a few words. Then, Butler got the ball, matched up with 1-on-1 with Williams, and drove and scored over him for a three-point play. Butler then got in Williams’ face, and the two bumped heads in a heated exchange. Both were assessed a technical foul.
“I think he said something and I just responded,” Williams said.
The incident seemed to push Butler and the Heat. After Williams hit the 3-pointer and said something to Butler, the Heat finished the game on a 24-9 run – including Butler’s three-point play – to take firm control of the series. Butler scored the tying and go-ahead jumpers as he put Miami on his back.
Did the run-in with Williams fuel Butler?
“Yes, it did. But that’s just competition at its finest,” Butler said. “He hit a big shot. Started talking to me. I like that. I’m all for that. It makes me key in a lot more. It pushes that will that I have to win a lot more. It makes me smile. It does. When people talk to me, I’m like, OK, I know I’m a decent player, if you want to talk to me out of everybody that you can talk to. …
“But it’s just competition. I do respect him, though. He’s a big part of what they try to do. He switches. He can shoot the ball. I just don’t know if I’m the best person to talk to.”
Butler emphasized that the encounter with Williams was not the reason the Heat won the game. They got major contributions from Caleb Martin, who scored 25 points off the bench. They made timely plays down the stretch. But the beef with Williams certainly didn’t hurt.
Williams had no regrets about going at Butler.
“You expect to beat the best, no matter if I lit him up or not, he’s going to do that,” Williams said. “For me, it’s a matter of understanding that yeah, sure, you did poke a bear, quote unquote. And how are you going to respond? Because for me, he made some tough shots, I battled, and I’m going to keep battling. He’s going to have to make every single tough shot the rest of the series, and I’m not going to turn and look otherwise because I respect him as a (expletive) player.
“He’s a great man, great person, great human being, known him for a while. But at the end of the day, we have a real, real decision to make. And that decision is going to be, are we going to come back and really set the tone for the rest of this year and really make a statement, or are we going to come out and lay down? And I don’t think this team is built for laying down.”
NOTES: In the fourth quarter of Boston’s losses in Game 1 and 2, Jayson Tatum has yet to make a field goal. He was 0 for 3 from the floor on Friday after not even attempting a shot on Wednesday. … Boston has lost 15 of its last 16 series after falling behind 2-0. The exception came in the first round against Chicago in 2017, another matchup where the Celtics dropped Games 1 and 2 at home. … Teams trailing 2-0 have come back to win the series 33 of 447 times, or 9.2 percent. … The Heat have won 10 out of 13 games to open the playoffs, after never winning 10 out of 13 during any stretch of the regular season. … While Celtics starters Jaylen Brown (17 for 44, .386 percent shooting) and Al Horford (4 for 13, .308) are off to dismal shooting starts in this series, center Robert Williams is 11 for 11 through two games and an absurd 49 for 59 in the postseason (.831). … Through two games, Butler has more steals (nine) than the Celtics combined (eight).
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