NBA: J.R. Smith beats up man he claims vandalized his truck

Longtime NBA player J.R. Smith said he beat up a looter in Los Angeles on Sunday because the man broke the window in his truck during protests in the area.

The video showing Smith kicking and punching the man was released by TMZ Sports and Smith addressed the incident via a different video.

"He didn't know whose window he broke and he got his (expletive) whooped," Smith said of the man.


Smith's vehicle was parked in a residential area.

The video shows Smith kicking a man on the ground multiple times. When the man finally gets up, Smith delivers a powerful right punch to the man's face. The man proceeds to scurry away.

"One of these (expletive) white boys didn't know where he was going and broke my (expletive) window in my truck," Smith said during his explanation video.

Smith, 34, said his display of violence was solely due to the truck incident and wasn't related to racial tension that has been soaring since George Floyd's death in Minneapolis on Monday.

Floyd, a black man, died after white officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for several minutes.

"I don't have no problem with nobody and nobody has problems with me," Smith said. "I have a problem with the (expletive) system."

Smith, who is currently an NBA free agent, ranks 13th in NBA history with 1,929 career 3-pointers. He has a 12.5 scoring average in 15 seasons with the then-New Orleans Hornets, Denver Nuggets, New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers.

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Celtics ace Smart hits out at 'dirty' Smith

LOS ANGELES -- Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart has accused Cleveland Cavaliers rival J.R. Smith of being a "dirty" player after the two almost came to blows in game two of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Smart lunged at Smith after the Cavs player shoved an airborne Al Horford in the back as the Celtics took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series on Tuesday at the TD Garden.

Smith was later issued with a flagrant foul over the push, which sent Horford crashing to the floor. Smart meanwhile needed to be restrained after angrily confronting Smith over the incident.

Smart later told reporters he had felt moved to defend his team-mate Horford.


"You know, and I just looked at it, Al is a defenseless person. He's in the air. He can't control how his body goes, and he's not even looking, and you go and take two hands to the back, that's a dirty shot," Smart said following Boston's 107-94 win.

"You just can't allow that to keep happening. That's not the first time JR has done some dirty stuff, especially playing against us. He's known for it, especially playing against us. We know that.

"So you know, it's like a bully, you keep letting a bully keep picking on you, he's going to pick on you until you finally stand up, and that's what I tried to do."

"One of my guys was down, and I took offence to it," added Smart, who produced a superb defensive display to help contain LeBron James and the Cavaliers on Tuesday.

Smart, 24, said his refusal to back down was the result of his upbringing as the youngest of four brothers.

"That's me. That's how I was raised," Smart said. "I'm the youngest of four boys. My whole life I had to fight. I had to get down and do things in order to secure my spot in the household.

"So coming on to the court it's nothing different. We're the underdogs. We're coming in, Cleveland is picked to beat us.

"We've got to come and give energy, extraordinary energy all the time, and I just try to be that spark plug."

Game three in the series takes place in Cleveland on Saturday.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

NBA round-up: Young out for at least 2 weeks, Noel sent to D-League

Los Angeles Lakers guard Nick Young is expected to be out two to four weeks with a strained calf muscle in his right leg, the team announced Wednesday.

Young was injured in the first quarter of Tuesday night's 105-88 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Center and did not return. He underwent an MRI exam in Chicago, where the Lakers were playing the Bulls on Wednesday.

The 31-year-old Young fell to the floor after trying to prevent a breakaway layup by Pelicans guard Tim Frazier.

Young, a 10-year veteran in his fourth season with the Lakers, started all 18 games in which he played this campaign, averaging 13.3 points and a career-high 41.8 percent on 3-pointers.


Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue called guard J.R. Smith's in-game hug Tuesday night with Milwaukee Bucks bench player Jason Terry an "embarrassing moment."

Lee said he met with Smith on Wednesday to address the mental lapse during the game and also criticized the veteran for wearing a ski mask-style hood covering his face during his interview with reporters.

"It was embarrassing moment," Lue said Wednesday of the play. "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."

Smith greeted Terry on the baseline while the Bucks were readying to inbound the ball late in the second half of the Cavs' 118-101 loss in Milwaukee.

When Smith removed himself from the play, Bucks guard Matthew Dellavedova fired a pass to Tony Snell, who was wide open for a dunk.

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The Philadelphia 76ers assigned forward/center Nerlens Noel to the Delaware 87ers of the NBA Development League on Wednesday as part of the ongoing rehabilitation program for his left knee.

The 6-foot-11, 228-pound Noel has yet to appear in a game this season after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery last month.

Noel, 22, said Monday he is likely "a couple of weeks" away from returning to the Sixers' active roster.

Last season, Noel averaged 11.1 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 67 games.

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The Golden State Warriors reassigned center Damian Jones to Santa Cruz of the NBA Development League.

Jones' return to the NBA was short-lived after the 7-foot, 245-pound rookie was recalled Monday but was inactive for the Warriors' 105-100 win over the Atlanta Hawks.

Jones, selected 30th overall by the Warriors in the 2016 NBA Draft, underwent surgery on June 14 to repair a torn right pectoral muscle and has not appeared in a game with Golden State this season.

(Editing by Larry Fine)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Reigning champs Cavaliers edge Magic to stay unbeaten

LOS ANGELES -- It wasn't always pretty, but the Cleveland Cavaliers held on for a 105-99 victory over the Orlando Magic on Saturday to stay unbeaten in the fledgling NBA season.

Shooting guard J.R. Smith, whose contract dispute dragged on through training camp before the reigning NBA champs inked him to a four-year deal worth as much as $57 million, gave good value with three three-pointers in the final three-and-a-half minutes as Cleveland won after letting most of an 18-point lead get away.

"Not every game is going to be pretty for us," Cavs guard Kyrie Irving said. "We understand that. (We) came off a kind of late win just like this against Toronto yesterday and now Swish (Smith) hit the big shot. For us it's just about being ready no matter what the score is. We've just got to stay resilient."

Superstar LeBron James had 23 points, nine assists and six rebounds, Irving added 20 and Smith shook off another slow start to score 16 points -- 11 of them in the fourth quarter.

Kevin Love fouled out in the final minute with 19 points and five rebounds as the Cavaliers improved to 3-0 for the season less than a week after raising their 2015-16 championship banner.

After controlling most of the contest, Cleveland opened the fourth quarter shooting just 2 of 12. They went more than five minutes without a basket from the floor, and the Magic had trimmed the deficit to 88-85 with four minutes to play.

"I just thought there was a stretch in the game where we messed around, took some bad shots," Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue said.
Lue said Smith is still finding his rhythm after missing all but one pre-season game.

But James found him in the corner for a big three-pointer after Orlando's Elfrid Payton's jump shot pulled the visitors within three.
Smith added another three-pointer on the Cavaliers' next trip down and one more in the final minute.

"The guys just set the table for me," Smith said. "It was just time for me to eat."

   
In Denver, Damian Lillard made a floating seven-foot shot with three-tenths of a second remaining in overtime to lift the Portland Trail Blazers to a 115-113 triumph.

Portland erased a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit, handing the Nuggets a defeat in their home opener for the third straight year.
Lillard scored 37 points and C.J. McCollum added 23 with 10 rebounds for the Trail Blazers.

Nikola Jokic scored 23 points and pulled down a career-high 17 rebounds and Emmanuel Mudiay had 21 points for the Nuggets on what proved an eventful night at their Pepsi Center arena.

At halftime the Nuggets retired the number 55 of Dikembe Mutombo, the Congolese great whose Hall of Fame career spanned 18 seasons.

But the night on which he was honored didn't go entirely smoothly. With 9:18 remaining in the fourth quarter half of the overhead lights in the arena went out, delaying the game for 28 minutes.

Portland put a further damper on the festivities with their huge rally, scoring the last six points of the game to win it.

Spurs pound Pelicans

Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker sat out San Antonio's home opener, but the Spurs still had enough firepower to beat the New Orleans Pelicans 98-79.

San Antonio never trailed after the first quarter and used a 17-4 scoring run late in the third period to take a stranglehold on the contest.

Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard scored 16 of his team-high 20 points in the second half and San Antonio smothered Pelicans power forward Anthony Davis, who came into the contest averaging 47.5 points per game in the young season but was held to 18.

Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry was asked if games against Western Conference powers Golden State and San Antonio on consecutive days was the toughest back-to-back the NBA had to offer.

"We're playing against a team that won 73 games and a team that won 67 games," he said. "I don't know if there's ever been a back-to-back where you play against teams that won 200 games."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Irving fires Cavs past Mavs in Cleveland

Kyrie Irving scored 33 points and came up with a key steal in the final seconds to preserve the Cleveland Cavaliers' 99-98 victory Wednesday against the Dallas Mavericks.

The Cavs played without star forward LeBron James, who was rested.

Irving threw the ball away when the Mavericks double-teamed him with 16 seconds left and the Cavs ahead 97-95. He regained possession when he hooked Dirk Nowitzki and wiggled in front of him for a steal.

Nowitzki was forced to foul, and Irving converted both free throws. The Mavericks' Deron Williams banked in a 3-pointer at the buzzer, but it didn't matter.

Kevin Love had 23 points and 18 rebounds, and Channing Frye scored 14 points off the bench to give the Cavs their first victory in a game James sat out this season.

They were blown out in the previous two instances and nearly blew a 20-point lead Wednesday before surviving.

J.R. Smith added 13 points for Cleveland (48-19).

Dirk Nowitzki scored 20 points for the Mavericks, who never led in the game. David Lee added 20 points off the bench, and J.J. Barea scored nine of his 17 in the fourth quarter.

Chandler Parsons contributed six points and a game-high 10 assists.

Dallas (34-34) lost for the sixth time in the past seven games.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Cavaliers' Smith accused of choking teen heckler

NEW YORK, United States - Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith hit back Friday at accusations reported in New York media that he choked a 19-year-old man who was heckling him outside a Manhattan pizza shop.

"Don't believe everything you read!" Smith said on Twitter on Friday.

Earlier his lawyer Alex Spiro told Cleveland.com that the accusation "is completely false," and added there was no reason to think the former New York Knicks player would ever be charged.

The New York Daily News reported that 19-year-old Justin Brown had made the accusation, telling police that after Smith ignored a request for a picture Brown heckled him, and the player responded by shoving him against a wall and putting his hands around his throat.

The alleged incident in the early hours of November 13 was not reported to police until November 16.

The Cavaliers issued a brief statement on the matter on Friday, saying only that they had spoken to Smith about the reports.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com