When George Hill missed his second free throw attempt with 4.7 seconds remaining in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, JR Smith somehow came down with the offensive rebound.All he had to do was lay the ball up and convert an easy two points to give his team the advantage in the final seconds.Instead, he inexplicably dribbled the ball out to the perimeter and the clock expired right as he realized his grave error. “I thought we were up,” he appeared to mouth to a bewildered LeBron James, who was wide open on the perimeter while urging Smith to either shoot or pass the basketball.As you know by now, the media has essentially crucified Smith for making such an awful mistake and therefore ruining Cleveland’s chance to steal Game 1 on the road.The social media world didn’t do JR any favors, either. The JR Smith Challenge was created. He has been meme’d, as has LeBron’s reaction to him. The universal criticism against him has been overwhelming.But, instead of backing down from all of it, Smith claimed that he's glad it's him who's facing the backlash as opposed to any of his teammates.“I told somebody right after the game I’m glad it happened to me as opposed to anybody else on my team,” Smith said, per Fred Kerber of the New York Post. “To be in that situation is tough and it’s not a situation everybody can handle so I’m glad it happened to me.”“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, obviously the last 24 hours and however many minutes since the game was over, I can’t say I was sure of anything at that point,” Smith continued.Smith claims to be well-versed in the area of getting made fun of.“That’s pretty much who I’ve been my whole life,” Smith said. “I’ve always been the one guy who’s the butt of the jokes or the one guy that does something crazy that everybody has to look at. And then I just come back and be myself and play the next day. I don’t really dwell on things too much. It’s been like that my whole life and that’s the way it looks like it’s going to continue to be. So I’ve just got to go out there and be me.”

The LeBron factor

Smith also confirmed what everyone else assumed: he feels pressure playing alongside LeBron James.

“There’s a lot of pressure … for myself and teammates just playing on his team,” Smith said. “It’s almost a blessing, a gift, and a curse. You get to play on his team and play with the best player in the world and you get to witness some great historic things and be a part of it. Then the other side, if you don’t help that person win they’re looking at you, too. So it’s a lot of pressure. … I tell him all the time he has the opportunity to play with me as well.’

With the weight of the world coming down on his teammate, James appears to have Smith's back despite his on-court reaction on Thursday.

“J.R.’s one of the most resilient guys I’ve ever been around,” James noted. “He took that loss as hard as anybody the other night, just [as hard] as anybody on the team. But one thing about J.R., he has an uncanny ability to bounce back and I think people have seen that throughout our postseason runs. … If he hasn’t played well or played to his ability, how he should have played, the next game he comes out and shoots the ball extremely well. Just very locked in. For me I don’t think I need to say anything to J.R.,” James said. “J.R. knows what I expect out of him and he expects things out of me.”

Smith will have an opportunity to prove his haters wrong when he takes the floor in Game 2 on Sunday.