Erik Spoelstra refused to ‘feed into’ Jimmy Butler storylines in postgame press conference

In his postgame press conference after Friday’s game against the Denver Nuggets, Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra made it clear that he wasn’t going to add any more layers to the drama between the Heat and star Jimmy Butler.

Friday marked Butler’s return to the Heat following a seven-game suspension, which came when he publicly made it known that he wanted to be traded. Butler logged 33 minutes in his return and while he finished with a respectable 19 points, the Heat were non-competitive in a 133-133 blowout loss.

In his postgame press conference, Spoelstra was asked about how he tried to work Butler back into the fold.

“Were you working toward more of a game with Jimmy and do you need him to be maybe more involved across the board than we got in this initial game back,” the question said.

Spoelstra’s response started simply enough.

“I don’t know,” Spoelstra said. “We haven’t seen him, obviously, in a couple weeks. He hasn’t played a lot of games. So that is a likely part of this.”

The coach then shifted gears.

“I know what storylines you’re looking for,” Spoelstra said. I’m not feeding into any of that tonight. We got our asses kicked.”

As Spoelstra continued, he made it clear that he wouldn’t add to the already complicated situation.

“I know what you want to talk about,” he reiterated. “I know what I saw out there from a defensive standpoint. It was not good enough. And that’s three straight games now. We’ve found our identity of how we can win games and then in three games, we haven’t been able to put that together, commit to that side of the floor and we’ve paid the price.