NPR Staff Painfully Recount Game 1 Of The NBA Finals
Last night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, what appeared to be an unbelievable blunder by guard J.R. Smith seems to have cost Cleveland the game. NPR staff recount his mistake.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
People can't stop talking about the epic failure that went down in Game 1 of the NBA finals.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Yeah. It had been an exciting game on ABC last night between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers. And then - well, I'm going to let our colleagues pick it up from here. Our producer Becky Sullivan set out in the NPR newsroom with her microphone.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: All right. Did you watch the game last night?
RENITA JABLONSKI, BYLINE: Yes.
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JABLONSKI: Are you going to make me recall this?
SULLIVAN: Can you take me through just, like, the last, you know, 10 or so seconds of regulation? Like, what happened?
MONIKA EVSTATIEVA, BYLINE: OK.
BRANDON CARTER, BYLINE: OK, yeah, yeah.
AHMAD OMAR, BYLINE: OK, so...
LAURA ROMAN, BYLINE: The Cavs were down by one point.
EVSTATIEVA: It is 107-106.
JABLONSKI: The Cavs had the ball. There was - what? - 4 seconds.
ROMAN: Four-point-seven seconds left on the clock.
JABLONSKI: It was the longest 4 (laughter) seconds of my life.
OMAR: Up until that point, Lebron James had scored...
EVSTATIEVA: Forty-nine points.
OMAR: Carried the team on his back singlehandedly, Lebron and his band of merry misfits.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: James passes aside and a foul call on Thompson.
OMAR: Teammate gets fouled, gets sent to the line.
ROMAN: George Hill was shooting free throws.
OMAR: Two free throws to win the game.
CARTER: So the Cavs hit one free throw, miss the second.
OMAR: Misses the second.
ROMAN: So then it was 107-107.
CARTER: It's tied.
EVSTATIEVA: Then...
ROMAN: The Cavs got the rebound.
OMAR: J.R. Smith gets the rebound.
JABLONSKI: And they're at the Cavaliers' basket, so all he needs to do is to...
OMAR: Shoot the ball, take time-out, do anything but just stand there and let the clock run out.
EVSTATIEVA: But then...
CARTER: Inexplicably...
EVSTATIEVA: ...He dribbles away.
CARTER: ...Runs away from the basket.
JABLONSKI: Why aren't they shooting? And he's just dribbling the ball.
ROMAN: Which is what you would do if you were trying to run out the clock.
JABLONSKI: And then it hit me.
OMAR: He thought that they were winning, and he was just dribbling the time out. And they were not winning.
ROMAN: It was 107-107.
CARTER: It's tied.
JABLONSKI: He didn't realize that he had to take the shot.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: You get the feeling J.R. Smith thought they had the lead. He didn't know the score.
CARTER: When the buzzer sounded, they just looked so defeated.
EVSTATIEVA: And then LeBron James is just staring at him.
CARTER: Just, like, an incredulous look on his face. He's like, what is happening?
ROMAN: It's the face of the greatest basketball player of all time, in my opinion, who scored 51 points only to watch, like, a starting member of the Cavaliers lose the game for them.
OMAR: I've scored 51 points here, historical game, and you guys can't do anything right.
EVSTATIEVA: It was just, like, breaking my heart.
CARTER: I cannot believe that that happened, honestly.
ROMAN: How can you keep playing after that? That's what - you have to play a whole overtime period.
OMAR: And anyone who was watching that game knew that when it went to overtime, it was not going to work out for these guys.
ROMAN: (Laughter) They totally lost.
CARTER: Oh, yeah. It wasn't even close in overtime.
EVSTATIEVA: LeBron is carrying his team on his shoulders, pushing these people to be a little better than mediocre. And they ruined it.
JABLONSKI: I'm from Cleveland. I thought we had it. And then we didn't. It was cruel, Becky.
KELLY: (Laughter) NPR's Renita Jablonski, Brandon Carter, Ahmad Omar, Monika Evstatieva and Laura Roman speaking to our producer, the very cruel Becky Sullivan.
CORNISH: J.R. Smith says he knew it was tied and didn't shoot because he thought the Cavs were going to call a time-out. Game 2 is Sunday night.
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