On Saturday evening, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics took a 2-1 lead in their Eastern Conference first round matchup vs the Miami Heat with an impressive 104-84 road win vs the Miami Heat in a game that wasn’t even really as close as the final score might suggest. Heading into the contest, many fans were wondering how the Celtics would react after suffering one of the worst playoff upsets in NBA history in Game 2 of the series on Wednesday, when Miami hit a record 23 threes, but Tatum and his teammates responded to the challenge on Saturday, showing off some elite defense even as their offense continued to struggle at times (with the exception of the second quarter onslaught led by Tatum).
Throughout the game, there were several chippy moments that occurred, including one between Celtics backup guard Payton Pritchard and Heat forward Caleb Martin that occurred after Heat guard Tyler Herro threw the ball at Celtics sharpshooter Sam Hauser.
Recently, Pritchard broke down his side of the altercation.
“It’s just the competitiveness of the game,” said Pritchard, via Bobby Manning of CLNS on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “He threw the ball at same. Obviously I’m going to be there for my teammate like we all are. It got a little chippy but I’ve never been one to back down from any situation. It’s kind of the fun part of the game, though. I don’t think it’s nothing crazy. It’s not like we have hatred necessarily off the court, but when we’re on the hardwood, we’re going to war.”
An ongoing rivalry
It’s easily understandable that there might be some tension between the Celtics and Heat considering that this is the third straight postseason in which the two franchises have squared off, with each team winning a series apiece up to this point. Of course, the first two matchups occurred in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the fact that this version is in the first round doesn’t seem to have diminished the intensity one bit.
Monday evening’s Game 4 will be a good test to see if the Celtics have indeed matured from their tendency to take their foot off of the gas at times in previous years, making things much harder on themselves than they have to be. This includes dropping crucial game 5’s to the Atlanta Hawks and the Philadelphia 76ers last year, making those series go on longer than they probably should have and perhaps taking some energy out of themselves for their matchup with the Heat, which Miami won.
On paper, there’s no reason that this series should go beyond five games, especially considering that the Heat are operating without arguably their best two perimeter playmakers in Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier, both of whom are out of the lineup due to injury.
In any case, the Celtics will have a chance to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the series heading back to Boston on Monday evening, once again in Miami. That game is slated to tip off at 7:30 PM ET.
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