Sports guarantees are a tricky business. Get them right, and you're a legend. Just ask Joe Namath, who famously guaranteed a victory for the upstart New York Jets in Super Bowl III and delivered. Come up short? You're a meme forever. Matt Hasselbeck surely regrets his misfire in the 2003 playoffs, when, after winning the overtime coin toss, he declared "we want the ball, and we're gonna score!"
Jimmy Butler's proclamation wasn't quite so dramatic. He acknowledged the difficult situation his team was in after losing Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic to injuries. He spoke about how thin that makes Miami's margin for error in the NBA Finals. But in the end, he made himself clear. According to Butler, the Heat will win Game 2.
"You're talking about adversity," Butler said. "For us, we thrive in that. If you look at it, everybody thought they were going to do that to us anyway. They probably think they're going to do it to us three more times in a row. I beg to differ. Nobody picked us to be here. We embrace it. We love it. We know that we can win; we do. But we know we've got to play perfect, man. So, coming into Game 2, all the adversity, backs against the wall, yadda, yadda, yadda, we're gonna win."
The Heat are currently listed as 10-point underdogs at William Hill Sportsbook, and the Lakers are -2,400 favorites in the series overall. Long odds, but hardly impossible. The Clippers, for instance, were -3,500 favorites against the Denver Nuggets after taking a 3-1 lead in their second-round series, and the Brooklyn Nets toppled the Milwaukee Bucks as 19-point underdogs in a seeding game earlier in the bubble.
Nobody would blame Butler if the Heat come up short. The odds are so heavily stacked against him that a loss is the firm expectation. But if he manages to pull off a victory in Game 2? He'll have a chance to become the NBA's version of Namath.
