Former Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem recently clapped back at Brian Scalabrine for claiming that Caleb Martin’s foul on Jayson Tatum near the end of Game 1 between the Heat and Boston Celtics was a “bush league play.”
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“Just I thought the play was bush league in the sense of [Martin] ran into it,” Scalabrine said of the play that occurred in the waning moments of Game 1. “He took advantage of it. He braced himself. He ran into Jayson Tatum while he’s in the air. Normally, that would happen with Tatum falling into the cameraman in the front row, but he got his legs taken out from underneath him. So, I thought that was a bush league play. But also remember, see I’m not jaded by all this. When Jaylen Brown did that thing to Duncan Robinson, I thought that was bush league, too.”
Haslem told Scalabrine to shut his “sucka a– up” on Instagram.
Things got heated between Jaylen Brown and Caleb Martin after Jayson Tatum took a hard fall 👀pic.twitter.com/uViGVzKrF3
— Ahn Fire Digital (@AhnFireDigital) April 21, 2024
Tatum suffered what seemed to be quite a nasty fall after he was knocked down by Martin but wasn’t too worse for the wear, as he quickly got back up on his feet and headed to the other side of the court to shoot a pair of free throws.
But Tatum’s teammate in Brown was unhappy with the foul by Martin, as he confronted the 28-year-old after the play, and the two players were each handed technical fouls in light of their interaction.
By the time Martin trucked Tatum and sent him to the court, the final outcome of the opening game of the first-round series was already all but decided. With just under a minute left to play in the contest, the Celtics held a commanding 16-point lead.
The Celtics went on to beat the Heat by 20 points in Game 1, and Martin had a forgettable performance against Boston after he torched the team in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals. Martin finished with four points, four rebounds and two assists on just 2-of-6 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 from 3-point range.
Boston’s defensive pressure made life difficult for Miami’s offense, considering the team mustered only 94 points while shooting 32.4 percent from deep.
The Heat will look to avoid dropping into a 0-2 series hole against the Celtics when the two teams face off against each other on April 24 in Boston.
After Game 2, the next two games of the playoff series will be held at the Kaseya Center, where the Heat went 22-19 during the 2023-24 regular season. Interestingly, Miami fared better on the road than at home, considering the squad finished with a road record of 24-17.
