Miami Heat's Jimmy Butler Loving The "Underdog" Role

Jimmy Butler always expected the Miami Heat to be in this position of competing for an NBA championship

A month ago, the Miami Heat were on the verge of elimination while playing the Chicago Bulls in the play-in tournament. 

Now, they are three victories from the NBA Finals after defeating the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. 

No one in the basketball world thought this was possible ... except Jimmy Butler. 

Nothing about this run surprises him. 

“Damn right, I did. Damn right, we did," Butler said when asked if he thought the Heat would be here.. "And the best part about it is we still don’t care what none of y’all think."

The Heat have never worried about outside factors this season. Not when they struggled during the first half of the season. Not when they barely made the playoffs. The only thing that mattered was the thoughts from everyone within the organization. 

 “Honestly speaking, we don’t care if you pick us to win," Butler said, referring to the media. "We never have, we never will. We know the group of guys that we have in this locker room. We know that Coach Spo [Erik Spoelstra] puts so much confidence and belief into each and every one of us. Coach Pat [Riley] as well. So our circle is small but, this circle has so much love for one another. We pump constant confident into everybody. We go out there and hoop, play basketball the right way, knowing that we always have a chance.”

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Shandel Richardson covers the Miami Heat for Inside The Heat.

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