Caleb Martin, Miami Heat address hard foul vs. Jayson Tatum

BOSTON – The Miami Heat say they can handle the truth, and that the term Code Red from the movie A Few Good Men should have no place in the vernacular of this playoff series against the Boston Celtics.

If the wake of the hard foul by Heat forward Caleb Martin against Celtics forward Jayson Tatum in the closing minute of Sunday’s 114-94 Heat loss at the start of this best-of-seven opening-round Eastern Conference playoff series, Celtics television analyst Brian Scalabrine accused Heat coach Erik Spoelstra of ordering a Code Red during a late timeout. In the Jack Nicholson-Tom Cruise 1992 movie, the term Code Red, an unofficial Marine act of discipline, was at the center of the plot.

Spoelstra addressed the ensuing swirl ahead of Tuesday’s practice at TD Garden, where Game 2 will be played Wednesday at 7 p.m.

“It was an irrational assessment in our view in what actually happened,” Spoelstra said pointedly but calmly. “The players are fine. All the outside noise or anything like that is not going to decide this series or the game. This is good, clean, tough, physical playoff basketball – and it always has been with Boston and us.”

Spoelstra said the players, the teams and the league, which can review such incidents, all need to move on.

“It’s not going over the top,” Spoelstra said of the play, “The league doesn’t need to look into anything more on either side, put extra eyes on it. This is just tough, competitive basketball, what everybody wants – this is what the fans want, players want, teams want and even the league.”

Martin took the fallout in stride.

“I wasn’t too surprised,” he said. “It’s that time of year where things get amplified and everybody likes to try to have a say in something. It’s just that time of year, and anything that’s done wrong or hard fouls happen to certain people, they’re going to be, ‘maybe that was to try to take guys out,’ stuff like that. That’s just what comes with this time of year.”

As he did in the immediate wake of the incident after Sunday’s game, Martin again stressed Tuesday there was no intent for such a collision, one that did not cause injury.

“I mean anybody who knows me,” he said, “I don’t feel the need to try to take out guys in order to beat somebody. First thing I did is turn around and check if he was OK. If I was trying to take somebody out, I’d have just kept walking away. That’s just not who I am.