Why Nickelback (yes!) means so much to Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat's title run - ESPN

IT'S AN HOUR after the Miami Heat shocked the basketball world, taking a 2-0 lead over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. And Jimmy Butler, who just scored 27 points in 41 grueling minutes is… singing. As he walks to the postgame podium, inside a makeshift conference room in the belly of Boston's TD Garden, country music singer Morgan Wallen's «Somebody's problem» blares from a speaker attached to the Heat star's phone.

Somebody's problem, but that ain't minnnnnne, Butler croons.

As he breaks down the game, and his heated, forehead-to-forehead exchange with Celtics forward Grant Williams, after which he led the Heat on a game-winning 22-9 run, Butler pivots, and acknowledges the unique song playing from his phone.

«I'm kind of like the DJ, so I get to pick and choose what we listen to.»

It's an acknowledgement as much as it is a truism the Heat have long known and embraced: Butler is unequivocally the center of what the Heat do on the floor — as evidenced by arguably the most dominant postseason run by any player in franchise history. But he's also their cultural nucleus off it — and that extends to everything, even including the control of an eclectic playlist that vibrates into his teammates' ears pre- and postgame.

And no one dares to challenge it — or him.

«Usually when you hear the music blasting you know it's him,» Heat guard Duncan Robinson tells ESPN. «Regardless of what's playing.»

Nikola Jovic, a 19-year-old rookie, admits there are times he sits at his locker and pulls out his phone to find out what Butler is playing.

«I'm not gonna lie,» Jovic tells ESPN. «Sometimes when he plays something in the locker room and I like the song and I don't know it, I will put the app — Shazam, so I find out