MIAMI — The results are in: Jimmy Butler is out.
Butler will not be able to play for the Miami Heat in a win-or-else game Friday night against the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Play-In Tournament because of a right knee injury that will sideline him for several weeks.
An MRI exam Thursday showed he sprained the medial collateral ligament, an injury that typically takes at least four weeks or more to heal.
That means if the Heat win Friday, they still wouldn’t have Butler for a Round 1 playoff matchup with the Boston Celtics — a daunting matchup even if Butler were healthy. The Celtics, the top overall seed in the playoffs, finished 18 games ahead of the Heat and went 3-0 against them in the regular season.
“We will do this the hard way,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said in Philadelphia on Wednesday night, when Butler played most of the game after getting hurt and the Heat lost 105-104 — missing out on a chance to be the No. 7 seed in the East. “That has to be the path right now.”
The path gets much harder now for the reigning Eastern Conference champions.
Butler was injured in the first quarter in Philadelphia, grabbing at the knee in obvious pain and limping throughout the remainder of the game — but staying in most of the way. He played 40 minutes, finishing with 19 points, four rebounds, five assists and five steals.
His mobility appeared to get worse as the game went along, and Spoelstra said postgame that Butler’s knee kept getting stiffer and stiffer. Butler was 2 of 4 from the field when he got hurt — then 3 of 14 the remainder of the game.
“I thought the adrenaline would kick back in and I’d be able to move,” Butler said after the game. “And it just wasn’t the case. I wasn’t able to do anything on either side of the ball and I think I hurt us more than I helped us, actually.”
Butler’s absence Friday will add to serious injury issues for the Heat.
They have been without starting point guard Terry Rozier for two weeks because of a neck injury and will play without him again Friday. Shooting guard Duncan Robinson has missed 10 of the last 15 games with a back problem, and in the five games he did play in that stretch, he was clearly affected — shooting only 6 of 26 (23%) from 3-point range. For his career, he’s a 40% shooter beyond the arc.
“We’ve had experience with that,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said of playing short-handed. “The biggest thing for us is to rally around each other and get the W.”
