Jayson Tatum throws shade at Heat, says every trip to Miami is ‘easy’
The Banner 18 crew started their championship run with a five-game rout of the Heat, delivering back-to-back losses in Miami.
The Boston Celtics wasted no time celebrating their hard-fought NBA championship, jetting down to Miami just hours after clinching the series in a Game 5 win over the Mavericks Monday night.
The journey is a familiar one for the Banner 18 crew, who started their championship run with a five-game rout of the Heat, delivering back-to-back losses in Miami.
Now, three series and thousands of frequent flyer miles later, the champs returned to TD Garden Friday to load up on duck boats for the city’s first victory parade in six years. And despite the quick travel turnaround, Jayson Tatum considers all of his trips down south to be easy-breezy.
“They’re always easy,” Tatum told NBC Sports Boston’s Brian Scalabrine Friday, when asked if this visit to Miami was any sweeter than the others.
Cradling the Larry O’Brien trophy, JT laughed and shook his head. Just last season his dreams were dashed when the Heat knocked the Celtics out of the Eastern Conference Finals in a brutal Game 7.
This season, however, Tatum returned with a hint of vengeance. After the Celtics’ 118-84 Game 5 win over Miami in May, Tatum revealed that he wanted to play the Heat in Round 1 of the playoffs.
“I wanted to play Miami in the sense that, maybe last year, playing against Atlanta, we might have relaxed a little bit,” he said. “Knowing the history… with Miami, how hard they play, how well-coached they are, that, for a first-round matchup, regardless of the seed, that we were going to have to be ready to play and be ready to fight.”
Now, the team that chanted “We want Boston” seems to be nothing more than an afterthought for Tatum.
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