Jimmy Butler vowed he would continue playing despite how much his ankle might have hurt as he stared his coach in the eye.
Butler has no intention of missing a second of the Miami Heat's transformation into the squad fans have been waiting for all season.
In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday, Butler led the No. 8-seeded Heat, which had just barely made it into the postseason, to a 108-101 victory over the New York Knicks.
The Heat defeated Milwaukee in the first round, becoming the sixth No. 8 seed to defeat a No. 1 with the help of Gabe Vincent's 20 points.
In that series, they scored 124 points on average, trailing Butler's 37.6 points per contest, but they won this one with their tried-and-true defence and rebounding, which has always served them well at this time of year.
RJ Barrett scored 26 points and Jalen Brunson had 25 for the fifth-seeded Knicks, who are in the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2013
The Heat trailed by 12 points early on, but that didn't deter a team that had overcome deficits of 15 and then 16 points in its previous two games against Milwaukee.
They overcame the Knicks in the third quarter with a 21-5 run, gradually closed the gap before halftime, then went away to a double-digit lead in the fourth.
They succeeded without the kind of outstanding performances that Butler gave in the opening round, when he scored 56 and 42 points in the final two games.
Butler helped the Heat get off to a fast start in a matchup between the teams that had been a bitter rivalry for four years running from 1997 to 2000.