Miami Heat And Jimmy Butler Fined For Having A Little Fun

The Miami Heat are headed to the second round of the NBA Playoffs. Awaiting their next opponents, as the Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors duel it out in their series, the Miami Heat handled their business on Tuesday in Game 5.

Here’s the kicker though! As everyone, likely, knows by now, they did so without Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry in the lineup.

Just because they weren’t playing though, doesn’t mean they weren’t involved in the game. As he had been for Game 4, the first game he would miss with the hamstring issue, Kyle Lowry continued to be another voice, another leader, another coach along the sidelines.

Jimmy Butler took a different approach though. After a big bucket by his Middle Finger Bro., Max Strus, Butler would make a gesture that’s now become infamous.

You know the one.

After the Miami Heat’s social media team and Jimmy Butler had too much fun Tuesday, they now have to pay for it. Each received a $15,000 fine on Thursday.

After the online community went nuts about the Jimmy Butler reaction, the Miami Heat’s social team decided to create a GIF of the moment. None of this flew over so well with the NBA though.

On Thursday afternoon, a day or so after the occurrence, the Miami Heat and Jimmy Butler were both fined for it.

Talk about a bummer. Though you can understand that the NBA would want to keep things, somewhat, family-friendly on their broadcasts, where does the fun and expressiveness come into play here?

This wasn’t done to cause harm, an uproar, or to be raunchy, well, not outright. It was done to celebrate a play by a teammate that Jimmy Butler has developed a massive rapport with.

To be clear, Butler probably feels like this about all of his teammates, but it goes especially for Max Strus.

So, while you get why the NBA fined the team and the player, there is still a certain level of legislating fun emotion out of the game that is in play here. It’s all in good fun, right?