CLEVELAND: J.R. Smith didn’t seem to think it was a foul, and neither did anyone else in the Cavaliers’ locker room.
Turns out, they were right.
The foul called on Smith late in Friday’s loss to the Boston Celtics was ruled inaccurate, the NBA announced Saturday. Crew chief Bill Spooner was standing right in front of Smith when he made the call, but the league declared after further review that there wasn’t enough contact to merit a foul call.
“It’s over now. I don’t think that play had anything to do with it,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. “I just think it was a bunch of things that led to that situation, so it happened. They say it wasn’t a foul, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
The foul call extended the Celtics’ possession and ultimately opened the door for the Celtics to win the game at the buzzer, but the Cavs made plenty of other mistakes in the final seconds, too.
Smith left the arena without addressing reporters Friday and again declined before Saturday’s game.
Dellavedova remains out
Backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova missed his third game with a strained left hamstring and Lue didn’t rule out the possibility of holding Dellavedova out until after the All-Star break.
The hamstring had been bothering him for a couple of weeks before the Cavs shut him down, and they have two games remaining before the break — Monday against the Sacramento Kings and Wednesday against the Los Angeles Lakers.
“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t let him play until after the All-Star break, but it would be hard to hold Delly out if he’s feeling pretty good,” Lue said. “I think the most important thing, for me, is just getting his health right going into the second stretch of the season.”
Balancing act
Lue is trying to install new actions on offense while also trying to get players the appropriate amount of rest. It has been difficult to do with games coming every other day. With the amount of minutes starters are playing, right now rest is winning.
“You gotta get the guys rest. Guys are playing 38 minutes a night and it’s tough to ask those guys to come in, after a hard-fought game, to come in and practice at a high level,” Lue said. “We only had two full practices. Even in those practices, we weren’t able to do everything we want to do and everything we want to accomplish, so it’s a fine line of getting guys ready to try to play the way we want to play and then also to be able to get their rest. It’s been tough.”
Dribbles
• Pelicans guard Norris Cole’s jersey was retired Saturday afternoon at Cleveland State, where he starred for four years before entering the NBA. Cole’s Pelicans teammates and LeBron James attended the event. James played with Cole in Miami, and they share an agent in Rich Paul.
• Pelicans guard Tyreke Evans missed the game with right knee tendonitis.
• J.R. Smith (61) has the second-most 3-pointers in the league since Jan. 1. Only the Warriors' Steph Curry (92) has more.
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs.
