Jimmy Butler dismissed his stunning triple-double after inspiring the Miami Heat to a crucial 115-104 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Without injured pair Bam Adebayo (neck) and Goran Dragic (foot) and trailing 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, Butler led the way by scoring 40 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds on Sunday.

Butler became the first player with 40-plus points and 12-plus assists in an NBA Finals game since Jerry West in 1969, per Stats Perform, as the Heat cut the Lakers' lead to 2-1 at Walt Disney World Resort.

The five-time All-Star also joined LeBron James (2015) and West (1969) as the only players in NBA history to record a 40-plus point triple-double in the Finals, but Butler played down the feat.

"We won," Butler told reporters post-game. "I could care less about a triple-double. We play this game to win.

"I'm glad my team-mates got a lot of trust and faith in me to go out there and hoop like that, but like I always say, you guarantee me a win, I could care less."

Butler added: "Everybody remembers winning, that's it. They don't care how many points you score, they only care if you won or lost. For us we're all about winning. We are. I say it all the time but I mean it. The guys that we have, the group that Coach Pat and Coach Spo put together it's always to win, nothing else.

"So I hope the next game I score zero and y'all talk all you want to talk and we win so I come up here and say the same thing."

"You got to empty the tank on every possession, especially playing against a great team like the Lakers," said Butler, who played 45 minutes for the second game in succession.

"But we got a good team. Like I say, I got the easy job. These guys create so much space for me, I get to shoot it whenever I'm open, pass it whenever I'm not. I really do have the easy job. But none of us, none of us are ever going to leave anything in the tank. We're going to lay it all out there on the floor."

Butler and Lakers superstar James went head-to-head throughout in Orlando, Florida.

James – eyeing his fourth championship – led the Lakers with 25 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, but he had eight turnovers.

There were verbal exchanges between James and Butler, with both heard saying "you're in trouble" in the first and fourth quarters.

"I mean, that's competition at its finest. I think LeBron has got the best of me way too many times," Butler said.

"I respect the guy for it, but this is a different time now, a different group of guys that I have around me, and we are here to win, we are here to compete. But we're not going to lay down, we're going to fight back in this thing, even it up 2-2."

Pressed on his verbal clash with James, Butler added: "First of all, I'm not just out there talking trash because I'm not. LeBron said that to me at the end of the first, that's what happened. I just said it to him in the fourth quarter.

"And talking about playing damn near perfect, we did a good job of that tonight. We rebounded the basketball, which is what we always talked about. We got back. But I think guys are starting to realise how much we belong on this stage and that we are in The Finals for a reason.

"To tell you the truth, I think when we get these other two guys back, they're going to make everybody's job including mine a lot easier. So I'm excited, but we still got to play better moving forward."