Miami Heat's Caleb Martin Expects To Have Boston Celtics' Attention In Playoff Rematch
Miami Heat forward Caleb Martin entered last postseason as sort of an unknown.
This time around, he's on everyone's radar. Especially the Boston Celtics. Martin was mostly responsible for the Heat knocking off the top-seeded Celtics a year ago.
When the teams open their first-round series in the Eastern Conference playoffs Sunday in Boston, it's safe to say Martin has the Celtics' attention.
"I'm assuming so but you never know," Martin said. "I'm just going to try to come prepared mentally. It's a new game, new series, new year. I'm coming just trying to be myself."
Celtics fans were overly critical of coach Joe Mazzulla's inability to adjust to Martin over the course of the series. The Internet was full of memes calling out his coaching. The hope is to do everything possible to avoid a repeat, especially with Butler out of the lineup because of a sprained knee.
That leaves the scoring burden on Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo but Martin proved he is capable last year.
He averaged 19.3 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.7 assists against the Celtics in last year's Eastern Conference finals. At the time, it was much needed for the Heat because they relied so heavily on Butler in the first two rounds. So naturally, the Celtics made Butler their focal point on defense.
Martin took it as a show of disrespect.
"Part of it was I'm sure I wasn't on the scouting report," Martin said. "Like I said before, you take stuff like that as disrespect. Some people use it as fuel to the fire."
