BOSTON — By way of 47 minutes, the Celtics largely dominated Recreation 1 over the Warmth, however it was overshadowed by a collision between Warmth ahead Caleb Martin and Jayson Tatum with a minute remaining in Boston’s blowout win. Martin, who had run in to chase Bam Adebayo’s miss, clipped and undercut Tatum, sending the Celtics star tumbling onto his again and head.
“Exhausting foul,” Martin informed CLNS Media/CelticsBlog. “I attempted to go assist him up. I simply heard him hit the ground. Clearly, I do know I hit him fairly exhausting, however momentum was carrying me, I feel I obtained pushed into that route. However exhausting foul, tried to select him up, that’s simply what it’s. If Jimmy (Butler) was on the ground, I’d have achieved the identical factor I’m positive. It’s simply what it’s.”
Jaylen Brown confronted Martin and slapped his hand away as Tatum shortly rose to his ft. A skirmish broke out, with Brown and Kristaps Porzingis getting in Martin’s face whereas Tatum darted to the opposite finish of the ground. He grabbed the ball from Tyler Herro and pointed on the reverse free throw line, the place he’d take two extra free throws to safe an 18-point lead. Tatum had scored 20 factors with 10 rebounds and 10 assists to that time, and although Miami challenged a foul name 30 seconds earlier, Joe Mazzulla didn’t pull the starters from the sport throughout the timeout.
Mazzulla mentioned Tatum got here away from the play effective. Within the second, regardless of the apparent scare of Boston’s star falling with out management, the pinnacle coach was excited to see how Tatum and his gamers would reply. Porzingis, who didn’t know if the hit was intentional or not, embraced the motion that adopted, and known as it enjoyable.
“Simply understanding it’s playoff basketball, it’s a bodily recreation enjoying towards a bodily crew,” Tatum mentioned. “It’s not the final time I’m in all probability gonna get hit like that or fouled on this collection. I wasn’t harm. You get hit like that, you simply stand up and I knew we had been within the bonus, so go down there and knock the free throws down.”
Although Martin ran at Tatum, Jrue Vacation did seem on replay to increase his arms and not less than add momentum to Martin’s crash on the boards. No matter theories concerning the timeout Miami that preceded the collision don’t maintain up because the Warmth known as it to problem a foul name. Martin and Brown acquired double technicals within the trade that adopted, and the sport ended with out additional incident.
In February, Duncan Robinson and Brown butted heads over a play the place the 2 obtained tied up and Robinson thought Brown tried to drag at his arm. Earlier within the fourth on Sunday, Derrick White collided exhausting with an Adebayo display screen that leveled him to the ground. White got here away from that collision briefly shaken up however in a position to return to the sport. Each groups anticipated rigidity and physicality and now, embrace it.
“It’s good to see J.T. is nice and okay,” White mentioned. “Ok.P. and J.B. obtained his again and also you gotta love that. I positively assume it was begin, strolling into the sport per se, particularly with the lengthy layoff. We simply wished to be aggressive to start out and we did job of that.”
