Cavaliers’ J.R. Smith plays again
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith’s soup choice remains unknown, and so do the ingredients that steamed him so much he threw a bowl of soup at assistant coach Damon Jones. Smith was suspended one game by the Cavs, and on Saturday the temperamental player addressed the latest drama in what has been a tumultuous season for the team that won the past three Eastern Conference championships. Asked what he could share about the soup spat, Smith was as cold as gazpacho. “Nothing,” he said. And as for the variety of soup he flung? “Honestly,” he said after the Cavs’ shootaround, “I don’t even remember.” Smith, who started Saturday night’s home game against Denver after serving his one-game ban Thursday against Philadelphia, refused to say if he agreed with the discipline. He said he spoke with his teammates about what happened but not with Jones, a former NBA player who has been on Tyronn Lue’s staff for two seasons. “It’s not really my call,” the 31-year-old said on the merits of his punishment.
FOOTBALL
› The team receiving a kickoff would be allowed to make a fair catch between its goal line and 25-yard line and have it result in a touchback under an NCAA Football Rules Committee proposal. NCAA secretary-rules editor Steve Shaw said the proposal is a counter to emerging strategy in which the kickoff team tries to execute a high, short kick to pin the receiving team deep in its territory. The opportunity for a fair catch and touchback should reduce high-impact collisions and risk of injury, he said Friday. “Coaches have really looked at this, and they want to do things to make this play safer in our game and keep it a viable play,” Shaw said. Before the 2012 season, kickoffs were moved from the 30-yard line to the 35 and the starting position on touchbacks from the receiving team’s 20 to 25. “The committee discussed the kickoff play at great length and we will continue to work to find ways to improve the play,” said North Carolina coach and committee chairman Larry Fedora. “We believe making one change (this year) will allow us to study the effect of this change in terms of player safety.” The proposal will be sent to conferences for feedback before being considered by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel on April 13. If approved by the panel, the change would go into effect for the 2018 season.
SOCCER
› ZURICH — In one of the most fundamental changes ever to soccer’s 155-yearold rules, FIFA approved video review on Saturday and cleared the way to use it at the World Cup in June. World soccer’s panel overseeing the laws of the game voted to add video assistant referees (VAR) despite mixed results from trials in top-level games. The panel, known as IFAB, voted unanimously to begin updating the game’s written rules to include VAR and let competition organizers ask to adopt it — with FIFA next in line this month. The decision “represents a new era for football with video assistance for referees helping to increase integrity and fairness in the game,” IFAB said in a released statement. FIFA must take a further decision on using VAR at the World Cup in Russia, which kicks off June 14. That should happen March 16, when the FIFA Council chaired by president Gianni Infantino meets in Bogota, Colombia.