As “embarrassing” as J.R. Smith’s decision to hug an opponent instead of play defense Tuesday night was, Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue admits he was ironically grateful for those two giveaway points.
He’s noticed a complacency festering among his team that Smith’s lapse, however outrageous, epitomizes. After meeting with his mercurial guard one-on-one a day after the game, which the Cavaliers dropped to the mediocre Bucks 118-101, Lue addressed the whole team on the larger issue facing them as they seek to defend last season’s title.
“Obviously we both know it wasn’t intentional, but it was just a lack of focus,” Smith said of Lue’s message to him and the team after Cavaliers practice Wednesday, via ESPN. “One of the multiple things that compounded onto the loss was just as a team we haven’t been as focused as we previously were. Winning and being who we are has a lot to do with that, but we’ve just got to overcome that and be better as a whole. It starts as individuals and then we can collectively become a group and team and have that mindset.”
Lue agreed there was no “negative motive” behind Smith’s mental lapse, but the Cavaliers second-year head coach still sat him down to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“It was an embarrassing moment,” Lue said. “Me and J.R. talked about it. We’re just going to move forward. We had a discussion about it, he felt embarrassed about it. It was an embarrassing play. We talked about it. We’re moving on.”
It wasn’t just the in-game malaise that irked Lue. Smith’s postgame antics at the team’s press conference, where he covered his face with a ski mask and hood and told reporters he didn’t “even remember” the play, compounded the issue — and the media had a heyday at Lue and the Cavaliers’ expense.
“It wasn’t right,” Lue said. “I talked to him about that also. There’s no need for that. Just address the media in the right way, move on. We got our butts kicked (Tuesday) night. Give Milwaukee credit, they came out, they attacked us, they beat us. Now we’ve got to move on.”
“Moving on” doesn’t seem to be a problem for Smith, who signed a four-year, $57 million deal with Cleveland in the offseason. He shook off his postgame comments as his way of joking and saving reporters from “boring” answers and then emphasized this was his “first” mental lapse as a Cavalier.
Now Smith says Lue wants him to step up and take some pressure off the “Big Three”: LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. But no fear, Smith has a comeback for his recent offensive woes, too (3-for-29 shooting in his last three games).
“I mean, I’ve gone on streaks where I haven’t shot the ball well here, but I was always making up for it in other areas so it wasn’t as big,” he said. “It’s just a part of the game. I got to do better with it.”