Harper on J.R. gaffe: Been there, done that
OAKLAND, Calif. — When J.R. Smith endured his monumental brain freeze at the end of regulation in the Cavaliers’ stinging Game 1 NBA Finals loss to the Warriors, few anywhere felt as bad for the Cleveland guard as Derek Harper. He has been there.
“Yeah, I saw J.R.’s mistake. Of course you feel for him,” Harper told The Post in a phone interview Friday from his Texas home. “You [feel bad] even though we live in a society that pushes you to fail more than succeed nowadays because of social media. People want controversy, whether it’s at somebody else’s cost or not. So of course you feel sorry for the guy.
“It’s human error when you think about it, and we’ve all experienced human error,” said Harper, who played for the Knicks for two full seasons and most of a third, and was part of the 1994 run to the Finals. “It’s just not exposed in front of millions and millions of people watching an NBA Finals game.”
Harper had a similar moment as a rookie, one that was referenced by Golden State coach Steve Kerr on Thursday after the Warriors’ 124-114 overtime win.
“Reminded me of a play — I’m a basketball junkie,” Kerr said. “Derek Harper dribbled the game out, clock out with Dallas years ago. … We got lucky.”
As a 22-year-old for Dallas against the vaunted Lakers, Harper dribbled away the final seven seconds of regulation in Game 4 of the 1984 Western Conference semifinals with the score tied. Harper thought the Mavericks had the lead, and admitted that afterward. As the Warriors did to the Cavaliers, the Lakers hammered the Mavericks in OT and won.
Harper admitted his mistake. Smith, even after his coach Tyronn Lue said his guard thought the Cavs were up by one, insisted he was waiting for a timeout to be called. That was Smith’s mistake, Harper said.
“That’s the wrong way to go about it. When you make a mistake, you own the mistake and move on,” Harper said. “The only thing that will set you free is to be open and honest. I don’t know how else to say it.”
Plus, Harper stressed, there was no guarantee Cleveland would have scored after Smith grabbed the rebound when George Hill misfired his second free throw with 4.7 seconds left. With LeBron James looking on incredulously, Smith dribbled back and then flung the ball to Hill.
“You’re always supposed to know the time and the score. I’ve been hearing that since I was 5 years old, but people have mental lapses,” Harper said. “The repercussion is for everybody to go crazy and talk about how bad the play was and ‘ What were you thinking?’ You could look at LeBron’s reaction to see how he felt about it.
“I was [a rookie] at the time and it was an honest mistake. The question becomes how you rebound from it.
“He’ll be fine,” Harper said of Smith. “I don’t think anybody in the arena or anybody watching the game felt as bad as he did.”
And Harper knows the feeling.