JR Smith Dismisses Claim Cavaliers Tanked to Avoid Wizards in Playoffs

Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard JR Smith dismissed claims by the Washington Wizards backcourt duo of John Wall and Bradley Beal that the Cavs missed out on the top seed in the Eastern Conference last year to avoid them in the 2017 NBA playoffs.

On Saturday, Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com passed along comments from Smith, who said Cleveland wasn't trying to fall in the standings during a cold streak late in the regular season.

"We were playing horrible," he said. "It wasn't like we were just out there [trying to lose]. Everybody was playing. It's not like Bron [LeBron James] didn't play, Ky [Kyrie Irving] didn't play, Kev [Kevin Love] didn't play, like we were resting guys. Everybody was playing. We just had a bad rut like we just did [this season]."

Wall raised the issue during an appearance on ESPN's The Jump ahead of the teams' head-to-head battle Friday night, which the Cavs won 130-22 behind 57 points from LeBron James.

"If you look at last year ... I think they didn't want that No. 1 seed for a reason, because we would have played them in the second round," he said.

Beal made similar remarks to Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington back in May.

"Cleveland didn't want to see us. I always said that. I felt like that's the reason they didn't play us in the second round. They didn't want to see us in the second round," he said. "If they were going to go down, they were going to go down in the conference finals. They didn't want to go down in the second round."

By dropping from the No. 1 seed into the No. 2 slot with a 4-7 finish to the campaign, Cleveland faced the Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors, both of whom were swept, rather than the Chicago Bulls and Wizards during the first two rounds.

Smith doesn't think the logic adds up, however, because Washington got eliminated by the Boston Celtics, who the Cavs beat in five games in the conference finals.

"I just don't understand that we tanked [to miss] them, and they went to seven games against a team that was a No. 1 seed and they lost," he told McMenamin. "So, how did we tank?"

Both teams are off to sluggish starts in 2017-18. The Wizards are 4-4 after Friday's loss to the Cavaliers, who moved to 4-5 with the win.