Jimmy Butler records playoff career high for points in Bulls’ Game 4 loss
By Will Osgood
Chicago Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler recorded a playoff career high for points in his team’s Game 4 loss at Milwaukee on Saturday night.
There have a been a few rather obvious and distinctive themes in this year’s NBA Playoffs through one week. One has been a proliferation of exciting dunks and buzzer-beating shots.
The other: up-and-coming stars coming into their own in the playoffs.
Add the Chicago Bulls‘ Jimmy Butler–a strong candidate and the likely eventual winner of the league’s most improved player award–as a player who has stepped his game up to another rung in this year’s playoffs, based on one category alerted to us by ESPN Stats & Info.
Jimmy Butler: playoff career-high 33 points
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 26, 2015
Butler bested Friday night’s talk of the league, Kawhi Leonard–who scored a playoff (or regular season) career high 32 points in an almost perfect individual performance for the San Antonio Spurs against the Los Angeles Clippers–who somehow bested Thursday night’s talk of the league Stephen Curry after hit a miracle 3-pointer against the New Orleans Pelicans with one second left in the fourth quarter to take that game to overtime and cap a 20-point fourth quarter comeback.
The 6’7″ Bulls swing forward does that which he always does–like Leonard–defend hard, create turnovers and impact the game offensively with an array of different moves and a full arsenal of different effective shots, which he does here.
Despite about 100 turnovers, the Bulls ended the first half tied, in part due to Butler’s 23 points and his buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
For the night, Butler was efficient in a way not known to common man–shooting 12-of-17 from the field, including 5-of-7 from 3-point land and 4-for-4 from the charity stripe.
He added seven rebounds and three steals. But the real marks of his efforts are displayed when looking closer at the Bulls’ box score. No other Bull scored more than 16 points.
In other words, without Butler, the Bulls were dead. They were fortunate to stay in the game long enough to necessitate a buzzer-beater from the Milwaukee Bucks‘ Jerryd Bayless, which he completed to hand the Bulls their first loss of the first-round series, 92-90 to send the series back to Chicago for Game 5 scheduled for Monday evening.