Cavs: Kevin Love’s right in stressing how J.R. Smith was big championship piece
By Dan Gilinsky
Fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers likely all agree with Kevin Love, who recently reassured that J.R. Smith’s contributions were so crucial in the team’s 2016 championship run, and that without Smith’s help, the Cavs wouldn’t have a ring.
Fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers should all acknowledge that J.R. Smith, though his last two-or-so seasons with Cleveland weren’t close to as effective as his initial year-and-a-half or so, played a significant role on the Cavaliers’ championship team that beat the Golden State Warriors in 2016.
No, I didn’t love what Smith did near the end of regulation in Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals, either, but that shouldn’t discount his good contributions for Cleveland throughout his other postseason runs with the Cavs, and especially, in 2016, as was noted.
In 79 postseason games with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Smith shot 40.6% from three-point range, and in the 2016 run, he posted averages of 11.5 points per game on 60.9% effective field goal shooting (per Basketball Reference), while also playing solid defense on the perimeter, which often related to staying attached to great movement shooters such as Kyle Korver (then of the Atlanta Hawks) and the Warriors’ Klay Thompson and contesting well.
On a recent Instagram post in which Kevin Love joined in on the old face swapping craze from FaceApp of which Smith commented on, a commenter then essentially questioned why Love still values Smith so highly, and Love’s response was very appropriate (h/t Cavaliers Nation’s Jonathan Sherman).
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz-5XI1AFPK/?utm_source=ig_embed
The commenting response was, again, h/t Sherman.
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Just because the Cavaliers ended up reportedly waiving Smith on Monday and last year wasn’t a good one between Smith and the franchise does not mean his contributions during especially the 2015 and 2016 Finals runs should be discounted.
As our own Robbie DiPaola detailed back in last November, Smith became much more than a “throw-in” in a reported three-team trade back in January of 2015 of which the main prize for the Cleveland Cavaliers was thought to be a young “three-and-D” player from the New York Knicks in Iman Shumpert.
With the 2016 NBA Finals Game 7 seemingly on the verge of being blown wide-open by the Warriors, Smith had big shots to keep the Cavaliers in it, and had eight straight points (and had 12 in the process and was a +7, for the record, per Basketball Reference).
For those who seem to discount Smith’s contributions overall and are bitter toward him, let Hoops Habit’s Tony Pesta, a big-time Cavaliers fan himself, set the record straight when it comes to Smith’s value for Cleveland’s championship team.
Of course, later on in the game, “The Shot,” happened by Kyrie Irving, and LeBron James had “The Block,” on Andre Iguodala in transition that was such a big play, too.
However, James wouldn’t have had that block if Smith had not caused Iguodala to double-pump it, which gave LeBron that extra bit of time to come back and pin that attempt against the glass in transition.
Moreover, it was great as a fan of the Cavs to see Love show his appreciation for “Swish,” who should always have a special place in the heart of Cleveland fans for how he embraced the city and played a crucial role on the team’s championship team, and really played well in the postseason, by and large, for Cleveland.
This further illustrates that Love seems to be an outstanding teammate, too.