J.R. Smith Insists He Knew Game 1 Was Tied When He Dribbled Out The Clock

Game 1 of the NBA Finals featured just about everything imaginable. There was LeBron James scoring 51 points. There was Steph Curry hitting big threes on his way to 29 points. There was JaVale McGee missing a wide open dunk. There were questionable late game calls that very likely swung the outcome of the game. There was a fight to end the game. And there was an all-time blunder from J.R. Smith to send the game into overtime.

While it’s never totally fair to pin the outcome of a game on one play, it’s hard not to focus on the end of regulation when George Hill missed his second free throw that would’ve put the Cavs up one and J.R. Smith came down with a massive rebound. Unfortunately, Smith didn’t go back up with the ball or pass it out to an open LeBron a the top of the key. Instead, he dribbled out toward halfcourt, allowing time to run out with the game tied.

At the time, everyone assumed Smith had mistakenly thought the Cavs were leading and was purposefully running out the clock, but Smith insisted after the game he knew it was tied and was pulling it out while expecting someone to call timeout.

The problem for J.R. with this explanation is there is video of him saying “I thought we were ahead” to LeBron immediately after the play and his coach said the same thing in his postgame presser.

So, yeah, something is amiss here. It is understandable that Smith would try to explain away his decision as something other than a terrible mishap and misunderstanding of the situation, as it’s highly embarrassing, but the video evidence isn’t helping his case.