For their on-court altercation during an eventual 147-119 Houston Rockets blowout victory Saturday, Utah Jazz reserve point guard Kris Dunn and Rockets starting forward Jabari Smith Jr. were both suspended without pay speak NBA. The league made the announcement yesterday in a press release via the official Twitter/X page of its PR team. Dunn will miss two games, while Smith will only be sidelined for one.
As the presser notes, both men went at it early in the second quarter of the contest. It appears that Dunn was at least the initial aggressor. But both players legitimately went at each other, which is usually a huge NBA no-no. ESPN’s SportsCenter has the full video recap:
Both clubs are the 11th and 12th seeds in the Western Conference, but only the Rockets really seem to have a chance of making the playoffs this year. Houston is 35-35 and just one game behind the No. 10 seed Golden State Warriors (36-34). At 29-42, Utah is 6.5 points behind Houston. With only 11 games remaining in the Jazz’s regular season, it appears they are more or less out of contention, barring a massive fall from the Rockets. But Houston is in the midst of an eight-game winning streak, and even though they will be without Smith for one game, the Rockets still appear well-equipped to continue their recent strong play once he returns.
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In that game, Smith finished with five points on 2-of-3 shooting from the field and 1-of-1 shooting from the charity stripe. He also had two assists and two rebounds. Dunn scored just two points on 1-of-3 shooting from the field.
Smith is the biggest loss, albeit in just one game. Over his last seven games completed during the Rockets’ eight-game winning streak, Smith has averaged 14.1 points with shooting splits of .462/.361/.933, 8.9 rebounds, 1 .4 assists, 1.3 steals and 0.7 blocks per night. Head coach Ime Udoka has been playing him more at center lately, with star big man Alperen Sengun sidelined indefinitely. Smith helped expand the field with quicker five-out offenses.
Uncommon Knowledge
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