The Miami Heat's 2022-23 season is off to a slow start, but Jimmy Butler remains confident in the team's ability to make a deep playoff run this upcoming summer.
“We’re still going to win the championship, and I don’t care what nobody says,” Butler said to Sam Amick of The Athletic. “Count us out. We’re going to win the f--king championship. I’m telling you. I don’t give a damn that we started 2-5."
The Heat won 53 regular-season games last season to earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference, only to fall one win short of making an NBA Finals appearance.
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P.J. Tucker departed for the Philadelphia 76ers in the offseason, but Miami returned four of its five starters from last year's top-seeded team in Butler, Bam Adebayo, Kyle Lowry, Tyler Herro and Caleb Martin.
"On paper, it looks like we have the same team," Butler told Amick. "Two and five is not that bad. ... It’s growing pains. It’s not bad, and we’re gonna be just fine. ... Y’all will look back at this, and be like, oh man, they started 2-5 and they ended the season f---ing 77-5."
Miami (2-5) exited a four-game homestand with just one win to start the 2022-23 NBA season. The Heat then went 1-2 on their first road trip of the year, falling to the Warriors 123-110 last Thursday and the Sacramento Kings 119-113 on Saturday.
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The are tied for 12th place in the East with the disappointing Brooklyn Nets, who are trying to salvage a season with superstars Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons trying to find their footing.
“We’re 2-5, but we straight,” Butler said to Amick. “We’ve got time, man. We’ve just got to play with a little bit more urgency and realize how fragile this thing is, trust in one another and play basketball the right way on both sides of the ball. There’s a lot of good things, so I don’t get discouraged.
"I know we have these [positive] stretches [n games], and it’s like, ‘Damn, they really can do it.’ We can do it. We’ve just gotta do it consistently.”