What was J.R. Smith thinking?
An overtime game. A 51-point performance by LeBron James. A scuffle. An overturned, disputed call.
There was a lot going on in Game 1 of the National Basketball Association finals Thursday night, as the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 124-114 in overtime. But there’s a good chance that what will be remembered for a long time is a player who did not seem to know the score.
The Cavaliers, 12.5-point underdogs on the road, led by 11 early on with James showing his arguably greatest-of-all-time form: His 51 points were a career high in a playoff game. By halftime, though, it was tied, and the result hung in the balance as time ticked away in regulation.
The Cavaliers seemed to catch a break when Kevin Durant was called for a charge on James, but it was overturned on review (“it’s never been done, ever, in the history of the game,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue contended).
Cleveland trailed by one point with 4.5 seconds left in the game when Cavaliers guard George Hill went to the line. He made the first and missed the second. Tie game.In an athletic play that certainly would be lauded had things turned out differently, J.R. Smith snagged a one-handed rebound. He was just feet from the basket, perhaps a shot away from a win. But inexplicably, he dribbled away, and dribbled some more and kept on dribbling far past the three-point arc. No shot, no pass to James wide open at the top of the key. Finally, perhaps realizing his mistake, Smith passed the ball to Hill in the corner, but time expired before he could get a shot off.
James, with a look of exasperation for the ages, seemed to be pointing in the direction of the basket as the incident played out. His emphatic arms-out gesture at Smith after time expired quickly became the most shared image from the game on social media.
Lue said after the game that Smith thought his team was ahead: “He thought we were up one.”
But Smith said he knew the game was tied: “I was trying to get enough space to bring it out to maybe get a shot off. I looked over at LeBron, and it looked like he was trying to call timeout, so I just stopped.”
“No, I knew it was tied,” he said, noting that Durant was right by him after the rebound. “I’m pretty sure everybody didn’t think I was going to shoot it over K.D. right there.”
Smith said that if he had thought his team was ahead, as many suggested, he would have acted differently.“If I thought we were ahead, then I would have just held onto the ball and let them foul me,” Smith said. “So, clearly that wasn’t the case.”
James, and a good number of fans, did not seem to buy this explanation. Asked about the play, James said, “I don’t know what J.R. was thinking,” then walked out of a news conference when pressed.
Smith, 32, is an NBA veteran of four teams, plus a stint with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls in China. He holds the NBA record for most three-point attempts in a game, 22, in 2014 (he made 10). But the shot he did not take Thursday may overshadow every one of those.