BOSTON -- All season long there’s been an undercurrent of redemption for these Cleveland Cavaliers. There was LeBron James trying to repair his broken Cleveland backstory. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving trying to prove they really are winners despite their playoff-less past. And even coach David Blatt leaving the empire he built in Europe and searching for that same respect stateside. The Cavs, individually and as a franchise, have sought to change peoples’ perspectives.

There’s no better poster boy for the group than J.R. Smith.

He was known for erratic shot selection, extravagant nightlife and excessive tattoos. He was supposedly such a loose cannon that even Phil Jackson, the man who coached the likes of Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest to championships, had no use for him. He was more apt to show up on Shaqtin’ A Fool than the SportsCenter Top 10 despite his abundant talents. He’d become an Internet punchline, the subject matter for countless memes and blooper-reel Vines.

Smith was so much more than the caricature he’s made out to be in the Cavs’ 103-95 win over the Boston Celtics on Thursday to put them up 3-0 in the series. On a night when James put up 31 points, 11 rebounds, four steals and two blocks; in a game where Love hit two clutch 3-pointers in the final 2:13 to give him 23 points total; on the same occasion Tristan Thompson continued his quietly stellar series with 12 points, seven rebounds and two blocks; it was Smith who set the tone before the ball was even tipped.

Some of the Cavs got together to play cards and watch the playoffs on Wednesday night (with the volume from the game announcers turned down and music playing in the background instead, as per James’ custom). At some point during the get-together, Smith told James he planned to get in extra shooting at the TD Garden on Thursday morning prior to the Cavs’ 10 a.m. team shootaround. He had shot just 6-for-21 through the first two games in the series and wanted to get his stroke back on track.

"J.R. said he was going over early, I said, ‘I’m going with you,’" James recalled about the hour-long shooting session he and Smith went through at 8:30 a.m. "I think the way he approached it this morning trickled down into tonight."

It sure did. Smith scored 15 points on 6-for-12 shooting with five rebounds and two steals in Game 3. His makes came at crucial times in the game, too. There was the pull-up jumper he hit in the second quarter to tie the game 40-40 after Boston had gone on a 13-2 run to erase the Cavs’ nine-point cushion and take the lead. And there were the eight points he scored in the third quarter after the Celtics started the period on an 8-0 run to nullify Cleveland’s eight-point halftime lead, including a turnaround jumper right in front of the Boston bench to beat the shot clock.

Naturally, he let the Celtics know about it.

“They was saying, ‘Hell no, hell no, hell no.’ And then it went in,” Smith said. “That’s one of my favorite shots, when the shot clock goes [down]. So, I had to give them a little glance, I guess.”

Smith may be seeking redemption to prove that he is a dedicated basketball player, but he’s not trying to make people believe he’s a choir boy. Displaying swagger and being a consummate professional are not mutually exclusive.

And while his example rubbed off on James, who likewise had his sharpest game of the series after their morning workout together, Smith also stepped up as a leader during the game when Irving was knocked to the floor by Jonas Jerebko in the second quarter.

The Celtics' game plan was clearly to try to rattle the Cavs through physicality. It seemed to be working as Boston bounced back in the second quarter when the Jerebko-Irving collision occurred. Smith was one of the first teammates on the scene and dutifully picked up a technical foul by letting the Celtics know that he wasn’t going to stand for those tactics.

“I think they started to try to take advantage of what the refs weren’t calling,” Smith told ESPN.com. “I guess they just figured we just a prima donna team. That’s why I’m here. I’m here to show them this is not going to go down the way you think it’s going to go down.”

Smith’s entire tenure with the Cavs hasn’t gone the way people thought it was going to go down. He’s been a perfect fit and a model citizen from Day 1.

“I’m shocked nobody is asking me about J.R. tonight. I’m just shocked,” Blatt interjected eight minutes into his postgame press conference on Thursday. “Wasn’t he great?”

In every way, he was. And he did it with a flair that is finally being embraced as endearing rather than dubious.

“For J.R., I think he’s been misunderstood,” James said. “He had a great column last week about the perception of him before he got here. I think you should read it, it’s pretty great.

“And he said at the end, it doesn’t matter if he’s playing in New York, or Cleveland or Denver or Timbuktu, all he cares about is winning. For a guy that’s been highly scrutinized throughout his career, saying he’s not a team guy and takes bad shots and he follows around everyone else, I think it’s unfair to him.

“He comes out every single day and works his tail off to try to get better, to help our team win. He defends at a high level and he’s a great teammate and he’s a great guy.”

If he keeps it up, the next unchartered destination he’ll be playing in could be the NBA Finals. What a redemption story that would be.