Jayson Tatum & Coach Spo Shutdown Uneasy Tensions Triggered By NBA Legends After Violent Brawl At Playoff Game

The Boston Celtics blew out the Miami Heat in their first game of the postseason. But the box score wasn’t what everyone was interested in discussing after the game. Instead, all the commotion was about whether Caleb Martin’s late-game box out was intentional. For those who missed out, late in the fourth quarter, Caleb Martin went to crash the glass, but an accidental push by C’s Jrue Holiday caused him to collide with an airborne Jayson Tatum. The result was Tatum taking a pretty hard fall, the sound of which was heard even from the strands.

However, none of the sides thought too much of it. But the discussions ramped up when former Celtics forward Brian Scalabrine, who now works for NBC Sports Boston, speculated foul play. Without directly pointing fingers at anyone, Scalabrine referenced the “code red” from A Few Good Men and implied that Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra instructed Martin to intentionally injure Tatum during the preceding timeout. However, Coach Spo swatted away such assumptions, stating, “It was an irrational assessment in our view of what actually happened. The players are fine. All the outside noise or anything like that isn’t going to decide the series or the game.”

Meanwhile, Tatum was just happy to shoot his free throw. “It’s a physical game, playing against a physical team, s— is going to happen. It’s not the last time my body will get hit like that or fouled in this series. So, I wasn’t hurt. You get hit like that, you just get up, and I knew we was in the bonus. So I knocked the free throw down.”

Heat legend defends coach Erik Spoelstra

During the game, Spoelstra called the timeout with 1:30 remaining on the clock when the Heat were down by 16. And the contentious collision happened just 30 seconds later. Scalabrine did not think that was a coincidence. “Why is he calling a timeout at 1:30 and why is that play happening 30 seconds later? That looked shady to me,” said the Celtics legend. However, Heat legend Udonis Haslem wasn’t about to let Scalabrine’s accusations slide. “Shut yo sucka a– up!! He got pushed. Brian Weak a–!!” Haslem commented on a video of Scalabrine’s appearance on “The Dan LeBatard Show.”

Martin also explained that it was his momentum from Jrue Holiday’s push that inadvertently carried him into Tatum. Moreover, he maintained that he would never try to hurt somebody to win. Even Jaylen Brown, who got into Martin’s face during the game to defend his teammate, chalked it up to “just basketball.”

Do you think the Caleb Martin push was intentional? Or just playoff basketball? Let us know in the comments!