Jimmy Butler III returns to his old home for a second annual reunion Wednesday night, but there is no guarantee the marquee attraction will perform for his longtime fans when the Golden State Warriors close out a grueling road trip against the host Miami Heat.
Butler began a two-night Florida tour with a season-best, 33-point effort in Golden State’s 121-113 loss at Orlando on Tuesday, playing 38 of the game’s 48 minutes.
Stephen Curry went 34 minutes to get 34 points and Draymond Green put in 31 minutes on a 12-point night, after which Warriors coach Steve Kerr disclosed no decision was made on which of his veterans might get rested on the final stop of a nine-day, six-game marathon.
Needing also to make a decision on Al Horford, who put in 27 minutes against the Heat, and Jonathan Kuminga, who sat out his third straight game with bilateral knee soreness, Kerr assured who plays and who rests will be a collaborative decision among coaches, players and training staff leading up to game time in Miami.
After the Tuesday loss, which dropped Golden State to 3-2 on the trip, Kerr spoke as if the trip were over.
“I thought we got a lot better on this trip,” he said. “Five games and no practices. I thought we saw our team come together over the last week, and I’m excited about that.
“I really like our team a lot. We’re going to be really good. We’ve just got to keep plugging away.”
After playing five full seasons and part of a sixth for the Heat, Butler was dealt to Golden State in February. Six weeks later, he returned to Miami — without star sidekick Curry — and was held to 11 points in a 112-86 defeat.
Despite averaging 32.7 minutes for Golden State last season, up from 30.6 earlier in the campaign for the Heat, Butler got just one game off amid the 30 he played for the Warriors in 2024-25.
Now 36 years old, he has been rested once already this season, that coming in the second game of a back-to-back at Sacramento after he’d sat out the second half the night before against the Phoenix Suns with a sore back.
Horford was held out of the Phoenix game in that sequence and has yet to play both games of a back-to-back this season. Curry and Green were given the night off in Sacramento, joining Butler in watching a 121-116 loss.
The Heat, meanwhile, will be playing for just the third time in the past week. They are coming off a split in a home-and-home series with the Knicks, winning the rematch 115-113 on Monday after falling 140-132 in New York three nights earlier.
Miami has played without Bam Adebayo (sprained left big toe) for the past six games, while Tyler Herro has yet to make his season debut after undergoing surgery on his left ankle in September.
Herro returned to practice over the weekend and said he hopes to be back in action later in the week. Adebayo, who is officially listed as questionable for Wednesday, awaits a green light that could come against the Warriors.
“You see both sides,” Adebayo said about the team’s conservative approach. “Some of it, obviously, you feel like you can help. And then the other side, you want to be fully healthy. That’s when you turn to the head coach and the training staff, because they both know I’ll go out there and play regardless. So they got to save me from myself.”
–Field Level Media
