Former NBA player J.R. Smith has a lot of love for the New York Knicks, but he doesn’t want their fans to get too carried away following their team’s 2026 title run. Smith heard claims on Instagram about how this Knicks team would beat the title-winning 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers and made it clear his squad would win.
“Who is guarding [Jalen] Brunson?” Smith said. “Who is guarding LeBron James? Huh? He said who is guarding Brunson. Me, I’ll guard him. Then we’re gonna put [Iman Shumpert] on him. Then what? Then what? Then what? You know the little guy that everybody swears I don’t like, or we don’t like? The little guy, No. 2 [Kyrie Irving]? Who’s guarding him? Who’s guarding [Kevin Love]?
“Bro, if you don’t knock it off,” Smith continued. “OG [Anunoby] is guarding Bron? You see what happened the last time he did that. Stop it, bro. I get it you a fan, you excited. Everybody’s excited. They won a championship. The excitement around it all, I get it. Just don’t act crazy, bro. Don’t step out there and do that. Don’t do that, bro. Relax, like, let’s relax. Seriously.”
J. R. Smith responds to a fan saying these New York Knicks could beat the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers . He says We’d beat them, put me and Shump on Jalen Brunson and who on the Knicks is guarding LeBron James and the little guy people say he doesn’t like, number 2 (Kyrie Irving) pic.twitter.com/420iwZwyAr
— joebuddenclips/fanpage (@Thechat101) June 19, 2026
Smith hilariously called out this fan for trying to cause friction between him and the Knicks, his former team, and told them to get a hobby.
As for the question here, you would have to give the edge to the Cavaliers for one simple reason. They had LeBron James in his prime. There was almost nothing anyone could do to slow James down back in those days, and he was at his devastating best over the final three games of the 2016 NBA Finals.
The Cavaliers, of course, had famously gone down 3-1 to the 73-9 Golden State Warriors in the Finals. They seemed dead and buried, but James then led the greatest comeback in NBA history. He scored 41 points in Games 5 and 6, and then had the iconic chasedown block on Andre Iguodala in Game 7.
James finished the Finals with excellent averages of 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.6 steals, and 2.3 blocks per game. He became the first player in NBA history to lead both teams in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks in a playoff series.
James also had a great sidekick in Kyrie Irving, who put up 27.1 points per game against the Warriors. The Cavaliers also had pesky defenders to throw at opposing guards, like Iman Shumpert, and were just a great team.
The 2026 Knicks would definitely cause the Cavaliers problems, but it’s hard to see them coming out on top in a seven-game series. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges are great defenders, but they’re not going to be able to bother James too much.
Now, to be fair, Smith and Shumpert aren’t locking down Jalen Brunson either. Brunson would shine, but would he outplay James the way he outplayed San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama in these Finals? Almost certainly not.
James would be the best player in this series by a mile, and he has a good enough supporting cast around him to get the Cavaliers across the finish line.
