Miami Heat's Jimmy Butler Pins Celebration Fine On Erik Spoelstra

Spoelstra encourages the team to celebrate their teammates

Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler refused to take blame for receiving a $15,000 fine from the league for inappropriate celebrating. 

Instead, he pinned it on coach Erik Spoelstra.

"It's Spo's fault," Butler said after Saturday's practice at FTX Arena. "He always says to celebrate everybody else's success. Max [Strus] goes on a 10-0 run, I celebrate, I get fined."

The incident occurred in the during the Heat's Game 5 victory against the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. After Strus' last basket, Butler was seen doing a dance on the sideline. Butler did not play because he was sidelined with knee soreness. 

The Heat now have their focus on the second round where they will face the Philadelphia 76ers. Game 1 is Monday night. 

The Sixers will be without All-Star center Joel Embiid, who is out indefinitely with an orbital bone injury he sustained in Game 6 against the Toronto Raptors.

Embiid and Butler were once teammates in Philadelphia. 

"Obviously I speak for everybody that’s a part of this team, we wanted Jo," Butler said. "We wanted to go up against them at full strength and prove that we can hang with anybody and we can beat anybody. It’s a mishap. I hope he recovers well and he gets back very, very soon.”

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Shandel Richardson
SHANDEL RICHARDSON

Shandel has covered the NBA since 2010, with previous stops at The Athletic and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  He has covered six NBA Finals, one Super Bowl, the NCAA basketball tournament. He has also been a beat writer for the Miami Hurricanes and contributed on every major beat in South Florida since 2003, including the Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins. He can also be read in the Sportsbook Review for gambling coverage from around the NBA. A native of Bloomington, Illinois, Shandel attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He's also worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star.  TWITTER: @ShandelRich EMAIL: shandelrich@gmail.com You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here Follow all of our Miami Heat coverage on Facebook here