Rockets\u2019 113-99 win over the Toronto Raptors<\/a>, Smith delivered one of his sharpest performances in weeks, finishing with 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-7 from beyond the arc. He added four defensive rebounds, two assists, and a pair of steals, while going a perfect 4-for-4 from the free-throw line.<\/p>\nThe scoring came at important moments, too.<\/p>\n
Smith set the tone early with 10 points in the first quarter, helping Houston keep pace in what opened as a back-and-forth shooting duel. Later, during the Rockets\u2019 decisive fourth-quarter surge, his defensive activity and transition finishing helped ignite a run that finally put Toronto away.<\/p>\n
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More than the numbers, the rhythm looked right again.<\/p>\n
When Smith is playing confidently, Houston\u2019s offense becomes much harder to defend. Defenses already have to account for Kevin Durant\u2019s shot creation and Alperen Sengun\u2019s interior presence. When Smith is spacing the floor, cutting decisively, and finishing possessions, the Rockets suddenly have scoring threats at multiple levels.<\/p>\n
That version of Smith is exactly what Houston needs as the schedule tightens.<\/p>\n
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The Rockets don\u2019t need him to carry the offense every night. They need efficiency, activity, and timely scoring- the exact things Smith delivered Tuesday.<\/p>\n
After a quiet stretch, the forward\u2019s scoring touch appears to be returning at the right time.<\/p>\n
And if Tuesday night was any indication, Jabari Smith Jr. may be heating back up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a brief scoring dip, Jabari Smith Jr. looks like himself again. Sunday night\u2019s loss to the Spurs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[1307,7,292,1346,938,6,681,969,680,476,3820],"class_list":["post-652086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-raptors","tag-alperen-sengun","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-jabari-smith","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-raptors","tag-san-antonio","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-raptors","tag-torontoraptors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116208819685274337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}