It was a chaotic final few minutes between the Golden State Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday, with margins thinner than Desmond Bane’s mustache. But the first of two consecutive daggers from Steph Curry felt like a grand culmination of the night, a unified thesis of this new-look Warriors team that is both exciting and familiar. Here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten: an inverted pick-and-roll with Curry screening for Jimmy Butler at the top of the arc, which forced Zach Edey to slide over and commit to the drive, leaving Draymond Green wide open in the short corner. From there, an almost instantaneous slingshot play that might as well be hard coded into the Warriors’ DNA. As soon as Edey stepped up, Butler immediately flipped the ball to Green, who flowed directly into a handoff with Curry for a wide-open corner 3. Vintage, backbreaking stuff.
It was a possession that preyed on every single one of the Grizzlies’ pressure points: the overreliance on Edey’s rim protection, the fatigue that accrues across 48 minutes of guarding Curry off the ball (even though Scotty Pippen Jr. did as well as Memphis could ask), and the force multiplication of defending an all-time great driver and the all-time greatest shooter in the same action. Behold, the Grizzlies’ triangle of sadness:
The Warriors superorganism has incorporated Hall of Fame talent before, but none quite like Butler. Officially, he is listed at 6-foot-7. With shoes, without shoes—either way, it’s kind of an unreliable measurement this time of year. Under pressure, Butler’s stature can seem magnified by will, self-belief, and, yes, ego. So it makes sense, then, how, in the opening minutes of the second quarter, he could think to taunt the 7-foot-4 Edey with the too small gesture after scoring on a drive. In the crucible of postseason basketball, Butler might as well be 8 feet tall, with an imposing shadow and a best-of-seven body of work that loom even larger.
“When it’s my time, you’ll know it’s my time,” Butler told reporters a month ago, when asked about his pedestrian scoring numbers during his early honeymoon phase with the Warriors.
Well, that time has come.
Butler’s 38 points on Tuesday night were the most he’d scored in any game over the past two seasons. He drives with the cocksure insistence of a star running back, complete with the strength, coordination, and contact balance to finish the play. And the Grizzlies’ ill-fated roster composition played right into Butler’s plan of attack. With Brandon Clarke—a smaller, more mobile frontcourt defender—sidelined because of a knee sprain, Memphis didn’t have many options to adjust to the Warriors’ clear strategy. Edey was practically a human shield for the Grizz, insulating Jaren Jackson Jr. from foul trouble and from his glaring rebounding deficiencies.
But what happens when one of the greatest contact seekers in NBA history faces off against one of the most foul-prone starting frontcourts in the league? Butler recorded a staggering 18 free throw attempts, nearly as many as the entire Grizzlies starting lineup combined (20). Since 2019-20, there hasn’t been a soul in the league who has matched Butler’s combination of high usage and a free throw attempt rate of .609—a higher rate over six seasons than even prime Shaq on the Lakers (a player teams literally fouled on purpose). Butler’s unique gift of foul drawing is an element to the game that the Warriors had never experienced until now.
It’s almost quaint now to think that there were any concerns about Butler’s fit with Golden State. If anything, he’s reinforced deeply held values that the team has long championed, just from a different vantage point. This is the franchise that forced an entire generation of front office personnel to ask existential questions about the viability of multiple-big lineups and the nature of big men in general. But now, the Warriors test fortitude in different ways. Butler’s incorporation effectively creates three different boss levels in the Golden State offense. When he’s off the court, teams must face the Warriors’ classic labyrinthine obstacle course, with an ever-shifting topography of screeners all built around Curry’s perpetual motion. When he’s on the court without Curry, the Warriors offense can resemble a scene out of medieval fantasy—Butler surrounded by willing and thoughtful cutters is a whole lot like a siege engine equipped with pendulum-swinging axes. And we’ve covered what it looks like when Butler and Curry are amplifying each other’s presence on the court together—a triangle of sadness that exacts a compounding toll on the defense. Pippen eventually fouled out in his valiant effort to shadow Steph; JJJ, Edey, and Bane all had at least four fouls apiece. Butler and Curry, meanwhile, combined for 75 points and 31 free throw attempts.
It’s fair to wonder, given the margins of Tuesday’s 121-116 win for the Warriors, how things would’ve been different had the Grizzlies been at full strength. Rookie guard Jaylen Wells, out for the season after a terrifying fall last week, had proved himself the team’s best on-ball perimeter defender and had completely stymied Curry in their December matchup. Clarke could have addressed some of the mobility issues that Edey presented. Ja Morant played with a deep focus and clarity to his game before an untimely ankle sprain in the third quarter. But the Grizzlies’ entire season has been littered with ifs and buts. At one point in the season, with the Grizz appearing to be dark horse contenders, Memphis was considered a favorite to trade for Butler’s services, even as a rental. But the landscape changes quickly out West. On January 30, the Grizzlies won a tightly contested game against the Rockets, 120-119—the last time Memphis would defeat a playoff-bound team in the West during the regular season. A week earlier, ESPN’s Marc Spears reported that, amid all the trade speculation, Butler’s camp had taken an “anywhere but Memphis” tack. Butler couldn’t have foreseen the questionable deadline trades or the surprise firing of coach Taylor Jenkins—or maybe he could have. At this point, it’s hard to know the degree to which Jimmy is the mastermind of his own good fortune.
Golden State has now secured a best-of-seven date against a familiar postseason foe, albeit one that is wholly revamped. The Houston Rockets are the greenest playoff team in the West, but they’ve already had two statement wins against the Warriors this season: an NBA Cup quarterfinal victory that coincided with the first round of the Butler-to-Golden-State rumors and one less than two weeks ago wherein Curry was ritually sacrificed at the altar of Amen Thompson’s dark horse Defensive Player of the Year candidacy. Although they’ve lost three games to the Warriors this season, the Rockets have a compelling formula of youth, nuclear-powered athleticism, and depth that could run Golden State ragged.
But the Warriors have a promising blueprint on their hands—and as multivalent an offense as the franchise has had in the post–Kevin Durant era. The hellhounds of Houston await, but the Warriors know they have an ace up their sleeve, yet to be fully revealed. There is no substitute for experience. And there is no experience quite like Playoff Jimmy Butler.
