With a minute remaining and the game all but decided, Bam Adebayo missed a short jumper off the front of the rim, and Tatum flew in for a rebound. As he jumped, Caleb Martin came flying in from the side and crashed into Tatum from behind, upending the Celtics star and sending him end over end. Tatum landed hard on his tailbone and winced, but he hopped back to his feet and made his way back to the opposing free-throw line, very clearly opting to keep playing rather than make it a flashpoint in the series.
"I was waiting to see what he was going to do," Joe Mazzulla deadpanned postgame. "I was kind of excited about the whole situation. So I enjoyed watching it."
"I don't know if it was an accident or not," Kristaps Porzingis added. "Those kinds of plays happen. Little bit of action, I think it's good during the playoffs. So that was fun."
The play itself was probably best classified as reckless or dangerous, although Brian Scalabrine's analysis in the postgame show on NBC Sports Boston might suggest a less favorable interpretation. For their part, Heat fans on Twitter have found a Zapruder-esque slow-motion angle to blame Jrue Holiday for pushing Martin into Tatum, which doesn't look very plausible in real time.
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