Celtics
“I wanted to play Miami in a sense that, last year playing against Atlanta we might’ve relaxed a little bit.”
Jayson Tatum said he had a feeling that the Celtics and Heat would meet again even before the Play-In Tournament was settled.
It would only be right for the Celtics and Heat to play a fourth playoff series in five years, Tatum said.
He was right. The Celtics and Heat did meet, and Boston closed out Miami in five games.
“I wanted to play Miami in a sense that, last year playing against Atlanta we might’ve relaxed a little bit,” Tatum said.
“But knowing the history with Miami, and how hard they play and how well-coached they are that, for a first-round matchup, regardless of the seed, that we were gonna have to be ready to play and be ready to fight.”
Tatum also pushed back on the notion that other teams like the Heat were tougher than the Celtics.
“The world we live in, there’s going to be something wrong with every team,” Tatum said. “That’s what they like to say. And you can see how talented we are and I think it’s lazy, or easy to say, that teams can ‘out-tough’ us. I’ve never understood that.
“Like what’s the definition of tough?” Tatum continued. “Having the louder guys on your team? Like that [expletive] don’t make you tough. Everybody has their own definition of what toughness is. Playing the right way, showing up every day to do your job without complaining. I think that’s being tough.”
The Celtics dominated the series except for Game 2, when Miami rained down a franchise playoff-record 23 3s. Three of Boston’s four wins were by 20 points or more.
“We just had such great battles against them,” White said. “In the past, we’ve had opportunities to close them out, especially on our home court, and have failed. Being able to close them out here [Wednesday], and do it the way we did, is definitely big.”
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