Jimmy Butler shines, trolls own Heat teammate in preseason win over Hawks

On media day, Jimmy Butler put an emphasis on being available while also contributing to winning basketball. In four preseason games played by the Miami Heat, Butler has played in all four which set a new benchmark since joining Miami.

Butler put together by far his best performance of the preseason and boosted the Heat to their third straight preseason victory in a 120-111 win Wednesday night against the Atlanta Hawks at the Kaseya Center. Butler finished with 24 points and three steals in 20 minutes. Butler also knocked down two threes and got to the line at will with eight free throw attempts.

Jimmy Butler had his best game of the preseason while looking like one of his Miami Heat teammates.

Butler had his handprints all over the game from the opening tip and started off the night by knocking down a catch and shoot three off of a beautiful find from Tyler Herro.

From there, Butler took advantage of the lack of defenders Atlanta had on the floor and punished mismatches when the opportunity was there. And with the trend of the Heat forcing multiple turnovers in the preseason carrying over to this game, Butler scored some easy baskets off of multiple Hawks mistakes with one of his baskets coming off of a Bam Adebayo steal and fantastic dime that went the length of the court.

Butler then capped off his strong half by sinking a three at the buzzer to keep the Heat in the game after a blazing hot shooting performance from the Atlanta Hawks built their lead to as many as 11 points.

Butler carried over his high energy performance into the second half and finished his night by causing a turnover and finishing a putback layup off of his initial miss where he laughed and openly admitted he traveled.

While it's great to see Butler taking a serious approach going into the season, Butler is also going to have fun and make jokes that put smiles on the faces of Heat fans. In this instance, Butler was trending for having a near identical look to Terry Rozier.

"I thought it was cool, I thought it was dope. He was trolling but it was funny," Rozier said.

It's great to see the Miami Heat relatively healthy and enjoying each others company while playing. If Butler can fulfill his goal of being healthy and available during the regular season and have performances such as his most recent outing against the Hawks, Heat Nation should have good faith in the Miami Heat having a much better regular season than the previous two seasons.