Heat's Jimmy Butler Offered Tennis Star Coco Gauff NBA Finals Tickets Before Playoffs
May 30, 2023
Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler has never been short on confidence, and he made a bold prediction months ago that he willed into existence.
Tennis star and avid Heat fan Coco Gauff revealed after her first-round win in the French Open on Tuesday that she has been drawing information from Butler, who offered to get her and her family tickets to the NBA Finals before the playoffs even started because he believed Miami will be playing for a championship this year:
"This was before [the Heat] were in the playoffs. ... He offered me tickets to see the last home game of the [regular] season. Then he DM'd 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, 'OK, 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 3% 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.'"
Butler was in attendance during Gauff's match at the Miami Open in March.
Of course, Butler's premonition came true as he led the eighth-seeded Heat on a surprising run to the Finals against the Denver Nuggets. Miami upset the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round and outlasted the second-seeded Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, winning Sunday's Game 7 in blowout fashion 103-84.
"Honestly, today, I told myself if Jimmy Butler didn't freak out when they were up 3-0 and all of a sudden it's 3-all, then I shouldn't freak out after losing the first set," Gauff said after defeating Rebeka Masarova 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Tuesday in Paris.
Butler and the Heat will look to keep the momentum going when they visit the Nuggets for Game 1 of the Finals on Thursday night.