It was naïve of me to think that the Houston Rockets attempting a million three pointers when it was apparent that nobody had the NBA Jam fire code running was the dumbest thing to happen in the playoffs. After all, the NBA Finals hadn’t yet occurred. And much like tempting Murphy’s Law, something worse must occur.
Obviously, I didn’t watch the vast majority of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, but thankfully I watched the part that really mattered. Where Cavaliers guard JR Smith corralled an offensive rebound on a missed free throw, with the score tied at 107 with five seconds left, but instead of calling for a timeout or attempting a game-winner, he dribbled it out to half court and let time expire – much to the abhorrent dismay of his teammates who clearly understood the situation better than he did.
Despite the fact that Smith alleges that he thought a timeout would be called or he was going to get fouled, the fact of the matter is that he clearly was not aware that the score was tied, and that he could have very well won the game, had he even bothered trying to get a shot up or passed it off to someone else who could. Commentators quickly and often, pointed out claiming to have heard that immediately after the gaffe, Smith claimed to have “thought we were ahead,” which is mortifying that a guy would lose track of the score, in the NBA Finals.
This isn’t really a big deal if the Cavaliers won the game, but naturally they lost in overtime, magnifying the incident fifty times over, as the sole reason why they lost. And this isn’t an instance where a player could politically correctly state that the team lost as a team, because LeBron James scored 51 points and JR Smith’s brain fart is what denied the Cavs a chance to even win in regulation.
Bottom line is, JR Smith is an idiot. He’s a bonehead that somehow managed to lose track of the situation in the most critical part of the game in the most critical part of the season, in the NBA Finals. Regardless of if he actually knew the situation and was hoping for a time out or to pass the ball off, or he did in fact forget, neither changes the fact that he’s an idiot. His excuse that he was waiting for a timeout or that he was going to get fouled is weak, because as the ballholder, he himself could have called for a time out, several of tenths of a second faster than the coach could have, but he didn’t want to take accountability for that decision. Or, despite the fact that when he snatched the offensive rebound, he had the ten-foot tall Kevin Durant up in the air and could very easily have gotten up a fairly uncontested shot at close range up and made a game winner, but again, no accountability assumed there either. Neither of which are any better than simply having forgotten the score at the most juncture of the game.
Needless to say, the backlash has been swift, ruthless, and extremely frequent, thanks to the internet. I’ll admit that I’d prefer the Cavs to win over the Warriors, mostly because I think what LeBron James is doing is incredible, and I tend to root against superteams regardless of whom they are, but when the day is over, I really don’t care who wins. Regardless of that, I have to say that the avalanche of memes and internet reaction to the JR Smith’s blunder have been nothing short of tremendous and amusing.
I can’t help but feel really bad for LeBron, because he did absolutely everything to win the game, only for his idiot teammate to contribute tremendously to lose it. He scored 51 points, which is god-tier in the NBA Finals against the best team in the league.
The only thing that can save JR Smith from ironic immortality now, is that if the Cavs shake this shit off and somehow win the NBA Championship in spite of JR Smith basically costing them game 1. But if history is any indication, now is the time to start moving all wagers onto the Warriors, because the Cavs gave their best shot and fell short, so there’s little reason to believe that the Warriors won’t just sweep the rest of the series now.
There’s no way the Cavs trust Smith anymore at this point, and I think it’s safe to assume that nothing short of winning this championship is going to prevent Smith from getting jettisoned from the team when the season is over. No matter what PC bullshit the rest of the team says to the media and on social media about team unity and that it’s not Smith’s fault, this is one of those things that will stick and linger in the weak petty minds of NBA players of today, and only if the Warriors suddenly turn into the Rockets, and the Cavs turn into the Warriors should really change the inevitable outcome of another Warriors championship.
Game 1 was entertaining, and the JR Smith memes will last forever. But the rest of the NBA Finals will probably be a snooze, but here’s to hoping to tempt fate again and hope that something more explosive and entertaining can still happen in the remaining three games left.
