Game 4 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics was extremely physical. In addition to Kelly Olynyk ripping Kevin Love’s arm out of it’s socket, his teammate Jae Crowder took quite a bit of abuse from J.R. Smith and Kendrick Perkins.
Kendrick Perkins shoved Jae Crowder to the ground on a hard pick and was assessed a flagrant 1 foul.
In the second half, J.R. Smith was ejected after he swung his arm around and punched Crowder in the face. Smith was assessed a flagrant 2 foul which is an automatic ejection.
“As I’m boxing him out, I kept feeling his forearm on the upper part of my shoulders,” Smith explained. “I tried to keep backing up, backing up. He kept pushing, pushing, pushing. And unfortunately I tried to swing my arm loose thinking that was the best way to get my arm up in position to rebound and I made contact.”
For Knicks fans it was all too familiar; Smith was ejected and suspended after a hit on Jason Terry during game 4 of the first round against the Celtics and never quite played the same for the Knicks again.
The Cavaliers went on to beat the Celtics 101-93 completing the 4-game sweep and moving on to the next round. It’s not all happy though as they’ll lose Kevin Love to injury and J.R. Smith to suspension.
