The Cleveland Cavaliers took a 120-92 loss to the Miami Heat on Saturday night after sitting LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. A 28-point loss in early March with their three best players out as Kevin Love continues rehab after knee surgery doesn’t mean much for Cleveland, and while the margin of loss isn’t newsworthy or all that interesting, what transpired over the final seconds of the game certainly was.
As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith were barking at each other from their respective benches, and after the final buzzer sounded both had to be restrained as they came together near mid-court.
https://twitter.com/world_wide_wob/status/838240252154142720
Smith, who is still recovering from thumb surgery earlier in the season, is practicing but not yet playing, but his status as an inactive for the Cavs didn’t stop him from somehow getting involved in some verbal sparring with Waiters. One can assume that there was some chatter going back and forth between Waiters and the Cavs bench during the blowout which boiled over at the end of the game as they shouted at each other across the court.
Waiters didn’t have a very good game against his former team, as he went 3-for-10 shooting for eight points in the Heat win. Whatever was being said by Waiters had Smith extremely hot and the two continued yelling at each other even as Smith was being corralled off the floor. The 1-8 matchups in the NBA playoffs usually aren’t very exciting, but if the Heat, currently 1.5 games out of the eighth seed, can get into the playoffs and draw the Cavs, it would be a lot of fun to watch Waiters and Smith go at it in a shooting guard battle.
