analyzing jimmy butler's decision to shoot the go ahead 3 in game 7
terrible shot or correct decision?
the boston celtics just defeated the miami heat 100-96 in a hard-fought game 7 to advance to the nba finals.
but the thing everyone is talking about is jimmy butler's decision to shoot a pull-up 3 in transition that would've put the heat up 1 with 16 seconds to go:
was it the correct decision or not? most people don't think so. here's a twitter poll i sent out:
the majority of nba redditors certainly don't think so:
so let's break it down: was jimmy butler's decision to shoot the go ahead 3 the correct one or not?
actually, before i do, i want to give a quick shoutout to max strus' 3 the possession prior. this is a medium light for sure, a tremendous shot to put the heat in position to potentially steal the game:
ok, on to butler's shot.
here's the situation he was in - he'd just grabbed the rebound off a marcus smart miss and was pushing in semi-transition, attacking 3-on-3 with strus on his right and victor oladipo on his left:
it's important to note the time, score, and situation: the heat were down 2 with 18 seconds left, and not in the bonus.
butler essentially had four options:
shoot a wide-open pull-up 3
shoot a contested pull-up midrange 2
drive and try to score 2 at the rim
pull the ball back out and reset the offense
let's talk about options #2-4 first.
option 2 is easily the worst choice here. let's say butler, a pretty good midrange shooter, hits the 2 and ties the game. miami would've then had to get a stop without fouling on boston's next possession (~45% chance of not happening) just to get the luxury of trying to beat the celtics in overtime (>50% chance of not happening - boston was pretty clearly the better team). those gloomy odds are assuming butler hits the shot, the odds of which are not high either - "pretty good midrange shooter" still means he shoots below 40% from 10-23 feet (since he's been an all-star in 2014-15, he's shot 40.9% from 10-16 feet and 36% from 16-23 feet).
would option 3 be better? at first glance, yes - butler shot 70% at the rim this year. that's why the argument for so many people is that if he had attacked the rim instead, he would've been "guaranteed 2 points":
but if you're jimmy butler, out of all the celtics players on the court, the one you'd least want to attack in that situation with tired, already-played-48-minutes legs would probably be al horford. he's bigger than you, is pretty mobile for his size, has excellent defensive instincts, and defended 7 games' worth of charging giannis antetokounmpo as well as anyone could have just a few weeks ago:
nba referees also tend to swallow their whistles on potential game-winning/tying collisions, especially in big games. see the end of game 2 of the 2012 nba finals, the end of game 3 of the 2015 warriors-pelicans series… many such cases.
i think getting a bucket or drawing a foul via attacking horford would've been far from guaranteed. and again - even if jimmy did tie the game up, the heat still would've had a <30% chance of winning the game from that point moving forward.
driving also opens up way more unknowns. it's not like butler and horford were playing 1-on-1; there were 2 other celtics back as well. if jimmy had attacked the basket, jayson tatum would've likely stayed glued to strus, but jaylen brown would've probably helped off of victor oladipo. then what?
would you rather have oladipo (8 for 29, 27.5% from 3 for the series, 1 for 7 for the night) shoot the 3 instead? there's no guarantee that shot would've been open either - grant williams would've rotated to the corner to close out, leaving kyle lowry at the top of the key. would you rather have lowry (8 for 30, 26.6% from 3 for the series, 1 for 6 for the night) shoot it? both would've objectively been worse options.
option 4 is resetting the offense and trying to get a quality shot after everyone's somewhat organized. boston likely fouls intentionally at some point (they had a foul to give) to get their defense set up with a few seconds left. maybe miami calls a timeout to draw something up. in any of these hypotheticals, could they have gotten a better attempt than the one jimmy took? the best player on the team shot a wide-open 3; you can't get much better than that.
so options #2-4 seem pretty mediocre. let's do a deeper dive on option #1.
first, a lot of people are saying butler shouldn't have taken the shot because he's a horrible 3-point shooter. at surface level, it looks like they have an argument: he shot 23% from 3 in the regular season this year, and he's been 24% from 3 his three years in miami.
but there's enough data to also argue that he's much better than those numbers show:
34% of the threes jimmy took this year were in the last 6 seconds of the shot clock, meaning a huge percentage of his very limited attempts have been low-quality, shot-clock-saving hail marys
he's a career 32% three point shooter
he shot 47% on pull-up threes in transition this year
he shot 37% on wide-open threes this year
if you're a believer in giving value to recent performances and things like "having the hot hand", jimmy also shot 34% from 3 in these playoffs (23 for 68 in 17 games). that's far from terrible. butler is very capable of making the shot he took.
second, there's an enormous difference in win probability between tying the game (<30%) and going up 1 (>55%) with 16 seconds left. at those difference in odds, unless you can convince me that the heat had a 70%+ chance of scoring a 2 (which you can’t), then attempting a 3 over a 2 isn’t even a debate. you have to shoot the 3.
third, the time and score was also a factor. if you shoot the ball earlier, you can definitely get another quality crack at it even if you miss. boston still has to make both free throws (likely, but not guaranteed). extending the game is never the worst option.
in short, the best possible thing in that situation was to take a wide-open shot in transition to try to go up by 1, early, with enough time to shoot again if the ball didn't go in. that's exactly the opportunity jimmy got, and he took it.
he made the right decision. he just missed the shot.
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