Bradley Beal is full of hot air if you ask Cleveland Cavaliers guard JR Smith.
In an appearance Friday on ESPN’s “The Jump,” Beal claimed that the Cavs, who lost their final four games last regular season, tanked from the top seed in the Eastern Conference to avoid his Washington Wizards early in the playoffs.
John Wall & Brad Beal join #TheJump, say the Cavs tanked the top seed last year to avoid Wiz early in the playoffshttps://t.co/9NwDmlxPpv
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) November 3, 2017
On Saturday, Smith took some time to scoff at Beal’s claim in response.
“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,” said the former Sixth Man of the Year, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “So how did we tank?”
“We were playing horrible,” Smith continued. “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].”
The Wizards did indeed lose in the second round to the Boston Celtics last season before they could even get to the Cavs. But Beal definitely seems to be trying to puff out his chest at Cleveland, and that seems likely to continue despite the Wizards’ 130-122 loss to the Cavs in Washington on Friday night.
