J.R. Smith seeking bounceback effort
OAKLAND, Calif. — Two days later, there is still no clarity on what J.R. Smith knew when he grabbed that offensive rebound in the final seconds of regulation of Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Not even in Smith’s own mind.
“I can’t say I was sure of anything at that point,” Smith said. All he and the Cleveland Cavaliers are sure of now is this: They’re down 1-0 to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, with Game 2 on Sunday night and Smith knowing that he’s going to be booed, made fun of, mocked and probably worse by the crowd at Oracle Arena.
Smith became one of the big Game 1 stories for all the wrong reasons. He grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed free throw in the final seconds of regulation with the game tied, then ran toward midcourt as if he was running out the clock and thinking Cleveland had a one-point lead. The Cavaliers wound up losing in overtime.
“He probably took that loss as hard as anybody on the team,” Cavs star LeBron James said Saturday. “But one thing about J.R., he has an uncanny abil- ity to bounce back. I think people have seen that throughout our postseason runs, where he hasn’t played well or played to his ability that he thinks he should have played, and then the next game he comes on and shoots the ball extremely well.”
That bounce-back tendency for Smith will be tested now like perhaps never before. This wasn’t just a gaffe. This was a huge gaffe, in the final seconds of the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the NBA Finals with the game on the line. And in the immediate aftermath, it appeared Smith said to James on the court that he thought the Cavs were leading — something he denied afterward.
“I might have said that,” Smith said. “Not sure, but I might have.”
To say Smith was the reason Cleveland lost Thursday night isn’t right, or fair. There’s no guarantee that Cleveland would have scored to win the game in those final seconds if Smith had done anything differently. Still, he was blamed. “I’m glad it happened to me as opposed to anybody else on my team,” Smith said. “To be in that situation is tough and it’s not a situation everybody can handle, so I’m glad it happened to me.”
Smith spent Friday in his hotel room for the most part, watching the Memorial (“Tiger played really well,” Smith said), talking with Kyle Korver and visiting with his kids over FaceTime.
He knows he’s a punchline. He’s been there before.
“That’s pretty much who I’ve been my whole life,” said Smith, who bonded with a therapy dog earlier this season during a rough stretch. “I’ve always been the one guy who’s the butt of the jokes, or that one guy who does something crazy and everybody’s got to look at or whatever the case may be. And then I come back and be myself and play the next day. I don’t really dwell on things too much. It’s been like that my whole life. That’s what it looks like it’s going to continue to be.”
The Cavs have made clear that they’re not quitting on Smith. They need him. “He’s going to start. And no, I haven’t lost confidence,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “J.R. can shake off anything, and when everybody tends to count J.R. out, that’s when he comes through. So he’s definitely going to start again. He’s a big part of what we do. That last play is over, it’s behind us and now we’ve got to move on.”
A bounce-back game would be more than welcomed by Cleveland. When Smith is good, the Cavs are really good.
Cleveland is 10-1 this season, including playoffs, when Smith scores more than 15 points. The Cavaliers are 19-5 when he makes more than half his shot attempts. They’re 20-9 when he makes at least three 3-pointers. Those are some of the many reasons why Lue still has confidence in him, and Smith clearly appreciates that.
“I’ve been playing like dogcrap all year and he’s stuck with me,” Smith said. “So he’s one of the people who gives me the most confidence.” And he’s due, too. Smith has missed more than half his shots in eight straight games — his longest such cold streak since November. The Warriors expect that Smith and the rest of the Cavaliers will be more than ready for Game 2. And Smith said his teammates still believing in him is helping.
“Everybody says it’s not just the one play or the reason why we lost,” Smith said. “Take it however you want it. My teammates have been great. Very supportive.”
OAKLAND, Calif. — All the chatter is that underdog Cleveland could be completely deflated from the way it flopped in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Determined and as motivated as ever might be more appropriate and fitting whenever LeBron James is in the mix.
“It’s one of the toughest losses I’ve had in my career,” James acknowledged Saturday, “because of everything that kind of went on with the game and the way we played. Obviously, we all know what happened in the game.”
There were miscues aplenty, most notably J.R. Smith’s offensive rebound in the final seconds of regulation that he dribbled back toward half-court in a tie game rather than shooting for a chance to win it — later insisting he knew the score, though that remains a huge mystery. The decision baffled a frustrated and stunned LeBron, who signaled at his teammate with arms pointed toward the basket.
“The game’s over. There’s nothing we can do about it,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “We’ve got to move on, move forward.”
James has done so all postseason with an edge, intensity and ability to allout carry the Cavs — will them to win after win, if you wish.
Yes, with King James on the other side in this familiar June rivalry, Golden State knows much better than to fall into such a trap that the Cavs might be down and out, even if the defending champions have some momentum going into Game 2 on Sunday night back home at Oracle Arena.
The Warriors learned that lasting lesson two years ago, when James led the Cavaliers back from the brink — a daunting 3-1 series deficit — to capture a title in Game 7 on the Warriors’ home floor.
“I know it’s not the exact same team, but we had them down 3-1 a couple years ago. They might have been deflated, and they came back and won, so we’re expecting another great effort from them,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We’ve been through this too many times. We beat Houston on the road in Game 1 and the narrative was, you know, series is over. It seems to always be that way. There is just overreaction after a game.”
Draymond Green didn’t sugarcoat it: Golden State got a little lucky to win Game 1 on a night James scored 51 points and the defending champions caught some big breaks.
The Warriors hope to be far better with a chance to take a 2-0 series lead before the series shifts to Northwest Ohio.
“Sometimes you need a little luck. It’s good to be lucky sometimes,” Green said. “I’ll take it.”
Kevin Durant wants the Warriors to remove the luck factor going forward. He even nit-picked that offensive board that Smith secured as something he should have done.
“As you try to lock in on the details as much as possible, that luck factor — good luck, bad luck — you don’t have it creep in if you figure out the detail parts,” Durant said. “To be good at those parts of the game, then you don’t let the luck creep in.”
Golden State gave up 19 offensive boards in all while getting only four.
The Warriors know James is going to score his share of points. They just want to make it harder for him to get good looks, something that is a top priority going into Sunday. James, in his eighth straight NBA Finals and ninth overall, shot 19 for 32 to go with eight assists and eight rebounds in the opener.
“We’ve got to make them work harder in general,” Kerr said. “I thought our defense was subpar the other night.”
James said he is taking antibiotics and using eye drops after getting poked in the eye by Green in the first half. The outer area of James’ eye was still red Saturday.
Klay Thompson expects to play though is listed as questionable with what he called a sprained left ankle while Andre Iguodala remained doubtful as he works back from a bone bruise in his left knee suffered in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals against Houston and has cost him the last five games.
Cleveland’s J.R. Smith slid into Thompson’s left leg in the first quarter of the series opener Thursday night. Thompson was dealing with stiffness, swelling and more pain Saturday.
“It is a Finals game, and I’m going to do everything I possibly can to play,” Thompson said. “It’s something you definitely don’t want to have in the NBA championship.”
Nor does James want blood in his eye to affect his vision or alter his view of the basket.
So, did he go off for 51 with only one good eye?
“No, I had some points before that already,” a good-natured James said, chuckling.