Like Cole and Antetokounmpo before him, Tang Tian chose to hold the Defensive Player of the Year award ceremony before the start of the second round.
However, the award ceremony would probably have to wait a few days, because their next-round opponent had yet to be decided.
Down 1-3, the Mavericks faced long odds heading to Houston for a road game.
But Butler stepped up once again.
Not only did he successfully contain Harden, he also scored a Game High 29 points, along with 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals.
Led by him, the Mavericks narrowly defeated the Rockets 106-101, pulling the series score back to 2-3.
With the next game returning to Dallas, the Mavericks had a good chance of dragging the series to a Game 7, and the suspense was back.
Before this series began, the general consensus was that the Rockets were a superstar team, while the Mavericks were a team built around All-Stars.
But at this point in the series, Butler was averaging 25.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 1.9 steals, shooting 49% from the field and 41% from three.
That was already superstar-level production, and he had achieved it while feuding with Carlisle.
After attending the Brothers of Hard Work Training Camp year after year, coupled with training attributes like Mike Kay's, he had truly transformed into a superstar over the past few years.
The saying that the Playoffs were the stage for testing Superstars had been proven countless times.
With the Rockets-Mavericks series still unfinished, the Pelicans' rest period grew even longer.
That came with both benefits and drawbacks.
The good news was that the players could get plenty of rest and enter the second round with ample energy.
The bad news was that with so much rest, maintaining the players' form