As you could probably tell, J.R. Smith is probably not in LeBron James’ good books right about now.
J.R. Smith made an all-time mistake last night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, grabbing an offensive rebound off of a George Hill free throw miss with the game tied and 4 seconds left, and proceeded to dribble the ball out without getting a shot off.
With LeBron dropping a playoff career-high 51 points in the loss, you can imagine that James would be a little more than peeved with Smith‘s decision-making on the court, given the performance LBJ had to come within inches of victory.
Despite the understandable anger LeBron would have for Smith during and after the game, James wasn’t about to throw his teammate under the bus in the postgame press conference when asked about Smith.
One reporter continually pressed LeBron to tell the world why J.R. did what he did, even re-phrasing the exact same question multiple times to try and get a reaction from LeBron.
James was having none of it however, and promptly ended the presser early.
LeBron walks off the podium after an exchange with a reporter about JR Smith, tells him to “be better tomorrow” pic.twitter.com/Fq8wezSuFT
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 1, 2018
Wouldn’t you react the same way if someone was asking the exact same question in different ways even though you already told them you didn’t know?
James, with his suit shorts and suitcase, walked off and implored the media to “be better tomorrow” as he headed off to prepare for Game 2.
