Miami Heat forward Caleb Martin caught the ire of Boston Celtics supporters when he collided with Jayson Tatum, who was in the air trying to get a rebound and fell hard on his back late in Game 1 of their first-round series on Sunday.
Fortunately for the Boston Celtics, Tatum shrugged off the scary fall and finished the game, but many labeled Martin’s actions as ‘dirty’, so the Nevada product felt the need to defend himself during a recent interview.
“I mean, anybody who knows me, I don’t feel the need to try to take out guys in order to beat somebody,” Caleb Martin said in a media scrum via Bobby Manning on X (formerly known as Twitter). “The first thing I did was turn around and check if he was ok. If I was trying to take somebody out, I would’ve just kept walking away.”
“This is the playoffs, and hard fouls happen all the time. If the roles were switched, I don’t think anybody would have been calling it a ‘code red’. It just happened,” he added.
The NBA decided against sanctioning Caleb Martin for his hard foul on Jayson Tatum, but there could be more tense moments like this moving forward, especially since the Miami Heat are known for their physical brand of basketball.
Miami Heat needs a bounce-back performance
The Boston Celtics reminded everyone why they’re the best team in the NBA, as they blew out the Miami Heat with a score of 114-94 in Game 1, although it’s worth noting that Miami was without Jimmy Butler.
Jayson Tatum recorded his first-ever playoff triple-double with 23 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists, while Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Jaylen Brown, Sam Hauser, and Al Horford all scored in double-digits for Boston.
Bam Adebayo had 24 points, six rebounds, and three assists for the Miami Heat, while Delon Wright and Jaime Jaquez Jr. recorded 17 and 16 points, respectively.
However, Tyler Herro, the player that Miami relies on to step up in place of Jimmy Butler, only had 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting, while Caleb Martin only tallied four points in 26 minutes.
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