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Heat’s Caleb Martin responds to accusations of ‘dirty’ foul against Jayson Tatum
"I don’t feel the need to try to take out guys in order to be somebody."
With two off days sandwiched between Games 1 and 2 of the Celtics’ first-round series against the Heat, most of the discourse surrounding both teams has had little to do with the matchups on the hardwood.
Rather, the primary topic of conversation has revolved around Caleb Martin’s controversial foul in the final minute of Boston’s Game 1 victory that could have injured Celtics star Jayson Tatum.
A small scrum broke out between the Celtics and Heat after Martin undercut Tatum while the Boston forward was jumping up to corral a rebound.
Tatum hit the parquet floor hard as a result, but quickly got to his feet and made his way down the other end of the court for free throws as Jaylen Brown and his teammates continued to jaw with Martin.
Tatum stressed that he was not injured on the play, with Joe Mazzulla adding that the Celtics forward was a full participant during Tuesday’s practice.
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Still, the timing of Martin’s foul — with Boston up 16 with 59.4 seconds on the clock — and the potential consequences of a serious injury for Tatum had many crying foul after Boston’s 114-94 win.
“To me, it’s a dirty play,” former Celtics forward and current NBC Sports Boston analyst Brian Scalabrine said postgame of Martin’s foul. “I think anybody that looks at that, I think Martin should get suspended for that. That’s a dirty play. You can’t do that. Just think about that.
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“The NBA is about the star players. The idea of winning an NBA championship is your star players have to stay healthy. And a guy goes up, and you just ram into him? That ain’t basketball.”
Speaking after Miami’s practice on Tuesday at TD Garden, Martin pushed back against the narrative that he intended to injure Tatum on the play.
“I mean, anybody who knows me, I don’t feel the need to try to take out guys in order to be somebody,” Martin told reporters at TD Garden. “The first thing I did was turn around and check if (Tatum) was okay. If I was trying to take someone out, I’d just walk away. That’s not who I am, it’s the playoffs. Hard fouls happen all the time and if the roles were switched, I don’t think anybody would be calling it a code red.”
Martin added that he felt he was pushed into Tatum on the play after getting shoved by Celtics guard Jrue Holiday.
“If anybody watched it, I clearly got pushed into him,” Martin said. “I was going for a putback dunk and the push changed the trajectory. This stuff just happens, guys are playing full speed and things happen. I never try to hurt somebody.”
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Heat coach Erik Spoelstra also took umbrage with the talk about Martin’s foul — noting that the play falls in line with the expected physicality that comes with postseason basketball.
“I get it, everybody gets emotional,” Spoelstra said. “If you ask fans on one side how they view the play, you ask fans on our side how they view the play and you’re going to get two totally different viewpoints on that. That’s the playoffs.
“That’s the fun part also for fanbases,” Spoelstra continued. “It was an irrational assessment on our view of what actually happened, and the players are fine. All the outside noise or anything like that is not going to decide this series or the game. This is good, clean, tough playoff basketball and it always has been with Boston and us. It’s not going over the top, the league doesn’t need to look anything more on either side. This is just tough competitive basketball, this is what everybody wants.”
Even though Martin feels as though he wasn’t at fault on the last-minute play, he still expects to hear plenty from the TD Garden crowd on Wednesday for Game 2 of this first-round series.
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“I wasn’t too surprised, honestly,” Martin said of the criticism he’s received. “It’s that time of year where things get amplified and everybody tries to have a say in something. It’s that time of year where anything is done wrong or hard fouls happen to certain people, they are going to be made out like you are trying to take guys out, stuff like that. That’s what comes with this time of year so I’m not tripping.”
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