Rockets power forward/center Jabari Smith Jr. was assessed a one-game suspension from the league following a physical fracas with Jazz point guard Kris Dunn. Per Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle, the Auburn alum admitted he was surprised by the decision at first.
“I wasn’t expecting it until they told me the rules,” Smith said. “I deserved it. That’s in the rule book… It’s not worth it… You hurt your team being ejected and then with a suspension.”
Houston did win the game Smith missed, a 110-92 victory over the Trail Blazers on Monday. The Rockets have now extended their league-best winning streak to 10 games.
There’s more out of the Lone Star State:
- Rockets head coach Ime Udoka has revealed that rookie swingman Cam Whitmore‘s recovery from his current knee injury is happening faster than his initially projected timeline, Feigen reports in another piece. “He’s going to get the contact portion eventually and progressing from spot shooting to moving to contact moving will be next, but we’ll see when that is,” Udoka said. “He heals fast and so he’ll probably beat the three-week diagnosis.”
- Second-year Spurs power forward Jeremy Sochan seems to be settling into a groove as one of the peskier defenders in the NBA, writes Nick Moyle of The San Antonio Express News. Moyle notes that Sochan is limiting his covers to shooting percentages that are 5.7% worse than their averages since the All-Star break. “I think it’s just remembering what they like, what they don’t like, how they like being guarded,” Sochan said of his defensive approach. “Watching even other players guard them, especially in the playoffs, because playoffs are a different level, especially with how aggressive people are. You see how some players don’t like it when you are up against them and making it difficult for them to dribble the ball. Sometimes it’s the other way around. But it’s just reading and reacting to who I am guarding and learning from them.”
- The Mavericks are riding high of late, having gone 17-6 across their last 23 games. The team has ranked in the top 10 on both ends of the floor during that run, and has improved to the league’s sixth seed, just 1.5 games behind the No. 4 LA Clippers. Per The Athletic’s Tim Cato, All-Star guard Luka Doncic has embraced a more deferential game. Cato writes that Doncic’s pick-and-roll chemistry with new starting center Daniel Gafford and rookie reserve Dereck Lively II have really helped expand the team’s offensive arsenal.