American teenage tennis sensation Coco Gauff revealed that Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler offered her game tickets to the 2023 NBA Finals way before the playoffs even began.
The 19-year-old, who was born in Florida and is a lifelong Heat fan, said this to reporters after her three-set comeback win over Spain’s Rebeka Masarova at the French Open on Tuesday night.
Done in three ????@CocoGauff gets started in Paris with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 win against Masarova. #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/Ubii6QNzgw
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 30, 2023
“Yeah, I did not watch; 2:30 a.m. is a tough time zone, especially playing the next day,” she said when asked if she saw the Heat’s Game 7 triumph over Boston Celtics. “First thing I did this morning was look at the results. Very relieved. I kind of held my breath.
“The Jimmy Butler story; this was before we were in the playoffs, the Heat were in the playoffs, he offered me tickets to see the last home game of the season.
“Then he messaged me a couple weeks later, asking if I wanted more tickets to see the postseason. I said, I won’t be here. I’ll be in Madrid and then Rome and then France. And then he said, okay, when we make the finals, let me know if your family wants some tickets.
“So, this was before we were even in the playoffs. This is before we lost to the Hawks for the first play-in game. I just felt like I knew that — everybody is like we have a three per cent chance of making the finals, but when he sent me that, I knew we were making the finals because he didn’t say “if we make the finals,” he said “when we make the finals.”
“Now that we are in the finals, I can say that story. But I remember screenshotting it and sending it to my family and I was, like, we’re going to the finals. So that’s my Jimmy Butler story. He pretty much said we were going to the finals before we even qualified for the playoffs, and I just really like that mentality of him. So that’s the story,” the 19-year-old concluded.
The Heat, who made the playoffs as the eighth seed through the play-in tournament, have been the revelation of the postseason as they continue to defy the many odds stacked against them.
Butler and his teammates saw off the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round before seeing off the New York Knicks in six games in the semifinals. In the Eastern Conference finals, they raced to a 3-0 lead over the Celtics, but after letting their lead slip, they completed the task at the TD Garden in Boston to close the series in seven games.
Butler won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP award, named after Celtics legend Larry Bird, and the six-time NBA All-Star will hope he and his teammates continue their fairytale run in the playoffs.
They will face the Western Conference’s top seed, the Denver Nuggets, in the NBA Finals, with the first two games set to take place at the Ball Arena in Colorado. Game 1 of the finals will be played on Friday, June 2, at 1 a.m. WAT.
