It turns out J.R. Smith and Kendrick Perkins’ cheap shots at Jae Crowder might have been a form of retaliation.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were extra chippy during Sunday’s Game 4 against the Boston Celtics, with Perkins picking up a flagrant 1 foul for decking the Celtics forward on a moving pick and Smith getting tossed for later taking a swing at Crowder. And 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Cedric Maxwell believes those moves might have been payback for Kelly Olynyk dislocating Cavs star Kevin Love’s shoulder.
“I talked to some of the Cavaliers players, and one of the things they mentioned to me, they said, ‘Look, what happened with Kevin Love, we’re going to retaliate,’” Maxwell said on Sunday night’s “Sports Final” on WBZ-TV. “That might have happened when (Perkins) came in the game and had the hard foul, and it could have happened with Crowder, because they banged him around pretty good. They might have been sending a message back.”
Though it seems odd that Cavaliers players would tell the Boston media they were looking for revenge, they certainly didn’t need to say anything to make it look that way. And if they were looking to retaliate, Perk would be the guy to do it.
Still, there’s a lot of debate as to whether the Cavs should have been looking to even the score in the first place. Olynyk and Love were tangled up before Love’s injury, and even though what Olynyk did undeniably was a foul, that doesn’t mean he was deliberately trying to rip the Cavs forward’s arm from its socket, as Love suggested.
“Kelly Olynyk and Love, they got mashed up,” Maxwell said. “You don’t see Olynyk being a physical and violent player, so for him to pull his arm out of the socket, I really think it was something that just happened. It wasn’t on purpose at all.”
Thumbnail photo via Jim Rogash/Associated Press
