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Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum counts his team’s five-game first round win over the Miami Heat as an “easy” part of their journey to the NBA title.
“They’re always easy,” Tatum told television analyst Brian Scalabrine about the Heat prior to the Celtics’ Friday championship parade.
NBA TV @NBATV
Brian Scalabrine: “You guys have been on a lot of hard-fought trips to Miami, was this one a little sweeter?”
Jayson Tatum: “They’re always easy.” 😅 pic.twitter.com/EvuhSrUWD6
Boston began the championship run by eliminating the Miami Heat, one season after the Heat crushed last year’s title hopes by upsetting the Celtics in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals.
Tatum averaged 21.8 points and 10.4 rebounds per game to help the Celtics close out the dominant first-round series win, which they capped off with a 118-84 blowout of the shorthanded Heat in Game 5.
The performance was a bounce-back from last year’s series, during which Tatum suffered a Game 7 ankle injury and was held to 14 points as the Celtics were eliminated.
Tatum was more complimentary of the Heat immediately after last years elimination loss, which he called a “tough” game, per Boston.com’s Conor Ryan.
“I think from the beginning of the game, we were turning the ball over,” Tatum said last May after the Celtics’ early elimination from the 2023 playoffs. “We didn’t shoot the ball well. They shot the ball extremely well.”
Tatum also said this May after the 2024 first-round win that he headed into the postseason wanting to play the Heat because he believed they would present more of a challenge for the Celtics.
“I wanted to play Miami in the sense that, maybe last year, playing against Atlanta, we might have relaxed a little bit,” Tatum said this May. “Knowing the history… with Miami, how hard they play, how well-coached they are, that, for a first-round matchup, regardless of the seed, that we were going to have to be ready to play and be ready to fight.”
That matchup may look easier in hindsight, now that Tatum is looking back at a postseason during which the Celtics lost only three total games. It also makes for a perfect sound bite to hype up Boston fans preparing for the championship parade.
Whatever Tatum’s reasons for the comment, it helps ensure the Celtics-Heat matchup will continue being one of the most compelling rivalries in the NBA next season.
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