There was a heated contest for Sixth Man of the Year award in the NBA between the eventual winner, JR Smith of the New York Knicks, and the LA Clippers' Jamal Crawford. Both were instrumental throughout the season, coming off the bench to light up scoreboards. While technically defined as "sixth men" for starting the game on the bench, when it came down to the fourth quarter you better believe both ballers were on the court.
Really, the difference probably came down to the fact that the Knicks dealt with injuries all season long which magnified Smith's impact. Without his buckets-in-bunches mentality, the Knicks probably wouldn't be the two-seed in the Eastern conference.
That's all good, though, because this is just a nice award. Both players have their eyes on bigger prizes. How do we know? Check Crawford's dominant second quarter, scoring 10 in a row as the Clips took a 2-0 lead over the Grizzlies. He'll take that, and a ring, any day over an asterisk on the back of an NBA stat card.
