Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler takes an enormous amount of pride in his defensive play—check him out in the clip below hilariously telling Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo that he was putting the “clamps” on him in Game 5 Monday night.
With the Bulls now having to fly back to Milwaukee for a pivotal Game 6, Butler admits that he’s falling well short of his own defensive standards in the surprisingly-competitive first round series.
Jimmy thinks he’s been too caught up in the offensive side of things.
Per ESPN:
The Bulls still lead the series 3-2, but after dropping two straight games, the group’s confidence has taken a hit. Butler acknowledged that as a leader of this team, he has tried to speak to teammates in order to get the group back on the same page. […] “I have,” Butler said. “I’ll stay on us about it. I’m supposed to be the prime-time defensive guy, and I haven’t been guarding a soul. I’ve been worried about offense too much, and I need to change that quickly or it’s going to be my fault.”
Butler almost racked up a triple-double in Monday’s loss with 20 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, but he was just 5-for-21 from the field in 46 minutes of play. […] Butler is averaging 44.2 minutes a game in this series and was upset with the way his team competed throughout the night.
“I think they just played harder than we did,” Butler said. “On both ends of the floor. End of story. They played harder than we did.” […] “I’m not concerned,” Butler said. “We’re confident. We’re a good team. I think we’re going to show it in the next game. We continue to say it and we haven’t done it, but I’m confident that we will.”
