SAN FRANCISCO — With Jimmy Butler‘s tailbone still hurting at the end, he came through in remarkable fashion and in every which way despite all the pain.
The Golden State star returned from a one-game absence and rejoined the starting lineup Monday night for a 109-106 Game 4 Warriors victory in their first-round series against the Houston Rockets, limping at times as he led his team one win away from advancing to the Western Conference semifinals.
“More than anything I just wanted to play. This is the best time of the year for everybody, this is why you go through what you go through,” Butler said. “So to be able to miss a game, I don’t like it, but I’m back, I’m back in a big way.”
Butler converted three free throws with 58.7 seconds left, grabbed the game-clinching rebound with 4 seconds to go and then made two more free throws as part of a 27-point night while playing 40 minutes, less than a week after he sustained a pelvic contusion in a frightening fall early in Game 2 last Wednesday.
“Tonight was great. He played through the injury, it was beautiful,” teammate Draymond Green said. “But it’s just his presence. What his presence does for this team is humongous. The first three quarters, he couldn’t move. Not sure how he started moving in the fourth quarter, but first three quarters he couldn’t move. Yet he never complained. He stuck with it.”
Butler participated in the morning shootaround earlier in the day and just needed to have a successful warmup to be deemed good to go.
“I thought it was winning time,” Butler said of his play down the stretch, thrilled he began to “move a little bit better.”
Butler played just more than five minutes during his initial stretch and nearly 18 minutes by halftime in a heated game delayed twice in the second quarter by skirmishes that featured four technical fouls and a flagrant 1.
The teams return to Houston for Game 5 in the best-of-seven series on Wednesday night as seventh-seeded Golden State tries to close out the No. 2 seed Rockets on their home floor.
The Warriors know how much they will need Butler if they want to make a deep postseason run.
“We had to have him. If this were the regular season he’d probably miss another week or two,” coach Steve Kerr said. “But it’s the playoffs, he’s Jimmy Butler, so this is what he does. The rebound at the end was just incredible, the elevation, the force then of course knocking down the free throws to clinch it. Jimmy was just amazing.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.