Jimmy Butler game status: Miami Heat star to not feature vs Atlanta Hawks

The Miami Heat will face the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday evening without their best player, Jimmy Butler. The team traveled to Atlanta without its top player, as Butler is dealing with a family issue and will miss his second game in the 2023-24 NBA season.

The Heat didn't provide more details on the status of Butler and the issue he is dealing with. It remains to be seen if he will be able to return to the lineup Sunday vs. the San Antonio Spurs on the second night of a road back-to-back.

Jimmy Butler will not be the only Miami star who will miss Saturday's game, as Tyler Herro has been ruled out for at least two weeks due to an ankle injury he sustained in the game vs. the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday.

"Right when it happened, I felt it and I kind of knew mentally. I heard some crunches and cracks in my ankle and I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’ll be it.’ So, I actually told the bench 'I’m done,'" Tyler Herro said afterwards, via NBA.com.

Herro is averaging a career-best 22.9 points per game so far for the Heat (4-4), who will put their three-game winning streak on the line Saturday vs the Hawks, who have won five of their first eight games.

Starting with the game vs. Atlanta, the Heat will play six of their next eight matches on the road, so they will need Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro back in the lineup as soon as possible.

Jimmy Butler says Miami Heat should be in a 'winning now' mode

Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat made a rough start to the season after winning just once in the first five games. Since then, they have built some momentum with three straight wins and are now at 4-4 and seventh in the East standings.

For his part, Butler wants to see his team maintain a "winning now" mentality moving forward, which will enable the Heat to build a multi-game win streak and climb to the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. Jimmy Butler recently said, via Sports Illustrated:

"It's a right now situation; you know what I'm saying you don't ever wanna lose games and/or away, so we gotta figure it out now. I don't think anybody here plays to lose, so we always wanna win, and we do lose, and we do win, but more than anything, we do that stuff together.

"So at the end of the day, yeah, we need to correct it, and we will, but it's something about right now, its winning now."

Butler is averaging 18.4 ppg, 6.1 rpg and 3.4 apg in seven games this season, on 43.2% shooting from the field and 50.0% from 3. The All-Star forward wants to lead the Miami Heat to a second straight trip to the NBA Finals and finally win a championship.

Miami has reached the Eastern Conference finals three times over the past four years (2020, 2022, 2023) and the NBA Finals in two of these three times (2020 and 2023).