A Few More Jimmy Butler Stat Porn Submissions Before We Move On to Game 5

Michael Reaves. Getty Images.

We all owe a great debt of gratitude to Charles Barkley who told us all the first round of the playoffs wouldn't be worth watching. He's a true hero who fell on the sword for us all to benefit. These playoffs have been great so far aside from the hapless Nets who were cut down before the playoffs even started and the Clippering Clippers getting predictably clipped once again. But Jimmy Butler's Game 4 performance vs the Bucks took the cake and I felt a responsibility to dig up some stat porn that you haven't yet seen to get you pumped for JHIMmy Butler to take the stage once again tonight.

If you're a Heat fan, you've certainly already opened an Incognito mode tab to take a long peak at these top-rated page ones:

Not sure how Charles would have known this but I'm going to give him a pass because I nodded my dumb head along with him when he said the first round was going to be lame. Back to JimHe. I had a little time to dive into just a few random home cooked stats you probably didn't know. After hearing Butler scored 20 straight points for the Heat in game 4, I was certain this was something no one's done in a long time. And I was right. If by a long time, you would count "two days" when Ja Morant put up 22 straight:

Alpha. Jimmy was 4th in the past couple decades which is no joke. Lot of top-dawg stars on this list, but shout out to the guys who had themselves a day out of nowhere. Role players like Wesley Matthews, Leandro Barbosa, and LeBron James. And how weird is it to see Russell Westbrook on here twice with a 19-spot. It's hard to remember this guy was actually incredible not so long ago especially after I literally just watched him go 3-18 a couple minutes ago and brick the final Clippers shot so bad they didn't even bother fouling down six with 25 seconds left. 

Everyone talks about playoff Jimmy and for good reason. There's just something about the playoffs that turns Butler super saiyan. I went ahead and split every player this year by PPG in the regular season vs playoffs (min two playoff games played) and Kawhi Leonard is the only other star player even close to increasing his scoring like Jimmy in the playoffs. 

*note: data doesn't include Tuesday night's games

While we're at it, here are the players on the very bottom of this list who have struggled the most in postseason scoring vs their regular season production:

Does any of this mean anything? Probably not, but it's a little concerning for the Lakers that 3/5 starters found their way on the bottom of this list. 

One last Jimmy stat real quick. Steph Curry and Jamal Murray are the only players to score 20+ points in any quarter of the playoffs since 1997. But Jimmy did do it twice. In game 4. That's pretty wild. I'll put a pin in looking for another way to search further back, because the data I used included just Michael Jordan's final two seasons and he still had three 20+ quarters. And that's exactly what Jimmy played like in game 4. Prime MJ. As a 90s kid from Chicagoland, that was fun to see but also made me strongly wish the Bulls would rehire Gar Forman and John Paxson so they could be immediately fired on the spot. 

Can't wait to see Jimmy in game five. Playoffs baby!

- Jeffro