NBA final: ‘I don’t know what J.R. was thinking,’ LeBron says
OAKLAND, CALIF. — Stephen Curry didn’t know what was happening, either.
“We were scrambling,” he said. “We saw J.R. (Smith) running back toward half court and kind of didn’t know what was happening at the time.”
There was no real consensus among players and coaches from both sides on what happened Thursday night after someone dropped the crunchtime minutes of Game 1 in a blender and hit “puree.”
What we know: The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 124-114 in overtime to start the NBA final at Oracle Arena.
What we don’t know: Precisely what Smith was thinking when he grabbed a rebound with 4.5 seconds remaining in a 107-107 game and dribbled away from the basket, as if he thought the Cavaliers had the lead and needed to run out the clock.
Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue indeed said Smith told him that “he thought it was over. He thought we were up one.”
LeBron James, who had a terse conversation with Smith after the play, said he didn’t talk to Smith about the score.
“So I don’t know what J.R. was thinking,” James said.
Smith himself, meanwhile, insisted he knew what he was doing all along.
“I knew we were tied,” Smith said, “but I thought we were going to call timeout because we got the rebound. I’m pretty sure people didn’t think I was going to shoot the ball over Kevin Durant.”
Whatever happened, it opened some extremely weird floodgates. And by the end of a hot-tempered overtime, Curry and James, two of the NBA’s signature players, were jawing at each other like genuine rivals.
Curry said James talked some trash, so he talked right back. Then they got right up in each other’s face.
“It’s going to happen. There’s going to be chatter,” Curry said later. “We’ve gotten very familiar with each other over the last four years ... But, at the end of the day, it’s a bunch of nothing.”
James was asked for his view of the argument, which also included Klay Thompson, Shaun Livingston of the Warriors and Tristan Thompson of the Cavaliers.
“I don’t know,” James said, and left it at that.
Somewhere in this tsunami of strangeness, however, Curry provided a sense of normalcy. He led the Warriors with 29 points, tied for the team lead with nine assists and added six rebounds in 46 minutes.
Curry, as he does when he’s at his best, provided a spark at crucial times. That included a halftime buzzer-beater from 38 feet that tied the score at 56-56 and helped snap the Warriors out of their early doldrums.
When it sailed through the net, Curry ripped out his mouth guard in celebration. There was no need to do that because he promptly did his talking with his hands.
Curry turned toward the crowd, wagged his finger and began leading the counting like a band leader: That’s one ... two ... three points. The crowd went bonkers.
Luckily for Curry, Smith wasn’t nearly as diligent about his math (or so it appeared) with the game on the line in regulation.
“We were all trying to find a man in case they got a shot off,” Curry said of those final seconds. “Thankfully, the time ran out so we could have new life in overtime.”
The Warriors outscored the Cavs 17-7 in overtime. And, along the way, they got a reminder that this opponent can’t so easily be counted out.