The Houston Rockets (52-30) are on the verge of elimination in the first round, and it would be a massive disappointment to their season.
Still, despite being down 3-1 against the Lakers, they believe they can turn the tide and win this series. In a chat with the media on Thursday, Rockets swingman Jabari Smith Jr. made his boldest claim yet: that his team is better from top to bottom.
“Just stay with it; be us, be aggressive, be free. We’re obviously the better team, I feel like. Just knowing that, being confident, trusting our work, and just telling us to be us,” Smith Jr. said, via Adam Wexler. “I just feel like, from top to bottom, you can say it’s an opinion you can say I’m biased, but I just think we’re the better team.”
Jabari’s words come in the aftermath of a season-saving victory over the Lakers on Sunday, which staved off elimination and gave the Rockets some hope for a dramatic comeback in the series. Jabari did not shoot the ball well, but he was still a major factor in the win, delivering 16 points, eight rebounds, three assists, three steals, and zero blocks on 26.7% shooting and 20.0% shooting from three.
Unfortunately for Smith, all the evidence works against his claim that the Rockets are the better team. Besides being more consistent in the regular season (going 53-29), the Lakers dominated in the first three games, effectively neutralizing Houston’s offense while setting the pace on the other end, shooting an impressive 50.9% from the field compared to the Rockets’ 41.6%.
Besides the brilliant coaching of JJ Redick, the Lakers’ success is a result of their superior depth and roster construction. If you don’t count the two leading stars, there’s NBA legend and four-time champion LeBron James, former Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart, former No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton, sharpshooter Luke Kennard, and versatile two-way forward Rui Hachimura. That’s not counting Jaxson Hayes and Bronny James, who have given the Lakers solid minutes off the bench. At the top, the Rockets have guys like Kevin Durant (two-time champion and former MVP), two-time All-Star center Alperen Sengun, and versatile swingman Amen Thompson, but they don’t have anyone else they can trust when the stakes are highest.
If weighing the rosters isn’t proof enough, the results of this series surely disprove Smith’s claim about which team is better. The Rockets have been outplayed at nearly every turn, with their only saving grace being Game 4, their best performance of the series so far. Even that victory, however, likely still won’t be enough to swing the series in Houston’s favor. No team in NBA history has come back from down 3-0 before, and the Rockets are ill-favored to be the first.
With at least one more game at the Crypto.com Arena, and a minimum of two if the Rockets extend the series to 7 games, Jabari Smith and company will have to learn how to win in hostile territory to pull off a historic comeback. It’s something they have yet to pull off in the playoffs so far, and the odds will be stacked against them in Game 5. What’s worse for the Rockets is that every game this series drags on, the more likely it is for Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves to return, who have been among the NBA’s best duos all year.
Meanwhile, with Kevin Durant unlikely to play in tomorrow’s pivotal showdown, the Rockets will have to keep leaning on their young stars (Sengun, Thompson, Shephard, and Smith Jr.) to carry the load and extend the series for as long as they can. The best they can do is take it one game at a time, but Jabari isn’t doing his team any favors by making such bold statements that his team is struggling to back up.
