J.R. Smith and the Cavaliers made the most of a Las Vegas pitstop
J.R. Smith was shirtless at a Las Vegas nightclub in the wee hours of the morning after a game, and maybe for the first time in the Cleveland Cavaliers guard’s career, nobody could have a problem with it.
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While unanimous Finals MVP LeBron James said, “I can’t wait to get back home,” following Cleveland’s historic championship win over the Golden State Warriors, the Cavs made a pitstop at XS Las Vegas.
After all, as we learned in December from Smith, “There’s going to be nowhere to party” in Cleveland.
The team’s title hopes may have been in doubt until the final minute of Game 7, but the celebration sure seemed planned, unless someone whipped up a cake in the shape of a Larry O’Brien trophy real quick.
ESPN.com’s Arash Markazi was on hand to capture the celebration, and Kevin Love brought the title belt. There was plenty of champagne on hand, of course, which sure made Iman Shumpert happy.
LeBron, Smith and Kyrie Irving all enjoyed the sweet taste of victory — straight out of the bottle, naturally.
Although, not all the suds were for consumed this night. Some served to get a wet jersey contest started.
The recently retired Richard Jefferson also got in on the action, spraying the crowd with some bubbly.
No biggie, though, since billionaire owner Dan Gilbert was there to foot the bill. So was James Jones.
And then there was backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova, who kept it real. Kind of figured the Australian would be double-fisting a couple Victoria Bitter stubbies, but Coronas do the job just as well.
A Cleveland crowd was expected to welcome the Cavaliers home around 11:30 a.m. on Monday, although they were still at the Vegas nightclub around 6 a.m., so J.R. should be in fine form by then.
It was Smith who expressed to GQ this past December, “You would never go out and party on this team. Once you’re on a team like this, you’re just so locked in. When you see someone like LeBron in the gym around the clock? Usually it’s the guys who want to get better so they can get more playing time who are always in the gym. But if you’ve got four MVPs, two championships, two Finals MVPs …”
Make that three championships and three Finals MVPs. It’s OK to party now, J.R. You guys earned it.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
