Rihanna Thinks She Knows Why Knicks Star J.R. Smith Has Underwhelmed During The NBA Playoffs

New York Knicks fans have been pulling their hair out during the course of the team's current series with the Indiana Pacers, which sees the Knickerbockers on the brink of elimination and down three games to one heading into tonight's Game 5. Most of their ire has been directed towards the team's talented yet troubled sixth man J.R. Smith, who won the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award but whose play has mysteriously fallen off a cliff over the last few weeks. NBA analysts have been endlessly arguing about the cause of Smith's dropoff, but leave it to Rihanna to set the record straight.

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The Bajan babe got herslef into an Instagram scrum earlier today, and posted (but then quickly deleted) the following message (via @karencivil):

SNAP! A cursory glance at photo wire services proves her point, though, as J.R. Smith was photographed looking pretty faded at Talib Kweli's record release party in NYC on May 7 (where Rih Rih was also at), at an afterparty for the Rihanna show (are you sensing a pattern here?) on May 4, and at an SBOE "All We Got Is Us" Mix Tape Release on April 29 (no Rihanna there, at least not that we know of). Seems like their mini-romance went off the rails somewhere along the line, and Knicks fans are hoping that this means they'll get a great performance out of J.R. tonight!

[Photo: Getty Images, @karencivil]