J.R. Smith opens up about throwing soup at former Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones in 2018

Smith was suspended one game for the incident

Back in 2018, Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith was suspended one game for throwing soup on assistant coach Damon Jones. In an appearance on "The Old Man and the Three" podcast, Smith gave his account of the incident, including which kind of soup he threw.

Smith said he is on good terms with Jones, but the former Cavaliers assistant didn't know when to stop "playing" with those around him. Smith explained that he was having a tough time on the court and in his personal life, so he wasn't in the mood for pranks.

"I had some stuff going on at home," Smith said. "I wasn't playing well. I'm like, 'Not right now.' Sure enough, I'm in the lunchroom getting my soup. He comes in, and mind you, this soup is hot. I'm like the first person in there. He tried to make me spill it."

Smith said throwing the soup wasn't a knee jerk reaction. He wanted to teach Jones a lesson about messing with someone who didn't want to be messed with.

"I'm not gonna lie. It took me a second too because I thought about it. It wasn't a rageful throw," Smith said. "It was like, 'Okay, you're playing with me. I know you're playing with me. I'm gonna show you.' I literally thought about it, and I threw it on him. He's over there screaming because the s--t is hot. I'm like, 'See, you wanna stop playing with me now? You gonna stop playing?'"

Apparently, Smith's tactic worked because he said Jones came up and apologized to him the next day, and there were no major ramifications outside of the one-game suspension. Smith said the team felt like it had to take some action after the story began to circulate in the media.

"A lot of it is like, it gets out, so the team feels like they have to do something about it," Smith said.

Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the story is that Smith wasted a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, which he said was his favorite during his time in Cleveland.