Just 17 minutes after the Cavaliers’ Game 3 loss to the Warriors, J.R. Smith’s account tweeted: ‘Cavs in 7.’
Smith, via Doug Lesmerises of Cleveland.com:
“I got out of the shower and my phone was buzzing. I did not tweet that,” Smith told me as he walked out of the locker room after his postgame interview session before a crowd of cameras at his locker.
“I’m smarter than that.”
“I do believe,” Smith said. “But I didn’t tweet that. I would be much smarter than that to tweet that at literally 12:04, right after the game.”
The tweet, which came as Golden State coach Steve Kerr was addressing the media and before Cavs coach Tyronn Lue did, seemingly violates the NBA’s social-media guidelines. The league prohibits players from tweeting from tweeting 45 minutes before tipoff until “after the postgame locker room is open to the media and coaches and players have first fulfilled their obligation to be available to media attending the game.”
So, Smith has incentive to say he didn’t send the tweet.
Did he tweet himself? I have no idea. Smith has seemingly matured in Cleveland, but he has been fined twice for tweets. He hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt.
The Cavaliers have much bigger problems, anyway.
