Nick Young was ‘so confused’ by J.R. Smith’s 2018 Cavs blunder: ‘Made me think I looked at the clock wrong’

Former Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith committed one of the biggest blunders in recent NBA playoff history down the stretch of Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals. With the game between the Golden State Warriors and Cavaliers tied up at 107 and just seconds left on the clock, Smith grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed free throw by teammate George Hill.

Smith probably should have immediately started looking to create a shot for himself or a teammate, but instead, he ran to nearly midcourt, and the Cavaliers didn’t get a shot off before the regulation buzzer sounded. Cleveland later lost Game 1 in overtime and got swept in that championship series.

Former Golden State Warriors guard Nick Young said Smith’s lapse “confused” him and led him to think he “looked at the clock wrong.”

“I was confused,” Young said. “The way he looked so confident, I thought they was winning, s—. … I said, ‘Hold up, they winning?’ I was so confused. … Nah, it was confusing ’cause I knew we was up, but he got the rebound, and he could have easily went back up, but he dribbled out, and that made me think I looked at the clock wrong.”

Young was a member of that Warriors title team in 2018, and head coach Steve Kerr often turned to him for rotational minutes in the 2018 NBA Playoffs. He played in 20 of the Warriors’ 21 playoff games that year, though he shot just 30.2 percent from the field and 29.8 percent from 3-point range in the postseason.

The now 40-year-old won the first and only title of his NBA career in his one season with Golden State. He spent over a decade in the NBA, with his Warriors stint coming near the end of his NBA career.

Golden State’s title in 2018 marked its second in a row, as it also beat the Cavaliers in the 2017 championship series. To this day, the Warriors are the last NBA team to repeat as champions, and a new champion will be crowned in the 2025 NBA Playoffs after the Boston Celtics got eliminated in the second round.

Young must be glad that Game 1 in 2018 unfolded the way it did because if Smith (or a teammate) had scored on that possession to give the Cavs a victory in the opener, the outcome of the series could have been dramatically different. It’s possible that Young would have retired from the NBA without a championship to his name.