Miami Heat forward Caleb Martin has been under fire for a play with around a minute left in the fourth quarter where in a bang-bang play, he collided with Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum where he fell awkwardly. The immediate response from fans and some viewers were that it was a “dirty” play in an attempt to take out the player which prompted a response from Martin, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, and Bam Adebayo before Tuesday's practice.
“I mean anybody who knows me,” Martin said, “I don’t feel the need to try to take out guys in order to beat somebody. First thing I did is turn around and check if he was OK. If I was trying to take somebody out, I’d have just kept walking away. That’s just not who I am.”
“It’s the playoffs. Hard fouls happen all the time,” Martin continued. “If the roles were switched, I don’t think anybody would have been calling it a Code Red. That just happened. And if anybody watched it, I clearly got pushed into him (by Celtics guard Jrue Holiday). I was going for a putback dunk and the push changed the trajectory. That stuff just happens. Guys are playing full speed and things happen. I’d never try to hurt somebody.”
Erik Spoelstra says it's an “irrational assessment” that it was a dirty play
Martin makes his case for the foul as being accidental and as he mentioned, it was clear on the replay he was pushed by Jrue Holiday and couldn't stop his momentum which resulted in the collision. With all the chatter about the play being devious on the part of the Heat, Spoelstra said to the media that “it was an irrational assessment” and that “this is good, clean, tough, physical playoff basketball.”
“I don't even think it's worth addressing. I get it, everybody gets emotional,” Spoelstra said. “You ask fans on one side how they view the play, you ask fans on our side how they view the play, you're gonna get two totally different viewpoints on that. That's the playoffs. You know, that's the fun part also for fan bases. It was an irrational assessment on our view of what actually happened and the players are fine. None of that has been, all the outside noise or anything like that, it's not going to decide the series or the game.”
“This is good, clean, tough, physical playoff basketball and always has been with Boston and us,” Spoelstra continued. “It's not going over the top. The league doesn't need to look into anything more on either side, put extra eyes on it. This is just tough, competitive basketball. This is what what everybody wants, is what the fans want, the players want teams one, and even the league. They want this level of competition that they're seeing.”
Heat star not surprised by the reaction the collision is getting
When it comes to Martin, he isn't surprised by the reaction the play is getting in terms of some saying that he had malicious intent in taking out Tatum. Subsequently, like Spoelstra addressed before Tuesday morning's Heat practice, Martin expressed that “it's just that time of year.”
“I wasn’t too surprised,” Martin said. “It’s that time of year where things get amplified and everybody likes to try to have a say in something. It’s just that time of year. And anything that’s done wrong or hard fouls happen to certain people, they’re going to be, ‘maybe that was to try to take guys out,’ stuff like that. That’s just what comes with this time of year.”
Particularly, another player who had their take on the situation was the captain of the Heat in Bam Adebayo who not only is the teammate of Martin, but a good friend to Tatum. He defended Martin, saying that he was pushed into the Celtics star and that the two “hashed it out” so they were both on the same page.
“I don't know if everybody watched it, but one of their players pushed him into Jayson,” Adebayo said. “Like I said, JT and Caleb hashed it out and we move on and with everybody else. It doesn't matter what they say, as long as it stays between these lines.”
There's no doubt that this was the most heated takeaway from the game for fans, but for the Heat, it was that they got dismantled by Boston in the Game 1 loss Sunday afternoon. Miami looks to make this a competitive series as Game 2 is Wednesday night at TD Garden.
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