Kenny Smith was a member of the Rockets team that staged a comeback from 3-1 down against the Phoenix Suns in 1995. The TNT analyst attempted to counsel Stephen Curry and his Warriors on their mentality going into Game 5. However, he seems to have fudged a few details from his own playing days.
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Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith was a guest on this morning’s FS1 Undisputed segment. When quizzed about what mentality Steph and co should keep ahead of 3 do-or-die homes, Smith had this to say:
“We were sitting on a plane, guys that I was talking to. I think it was Mario Elle and Vernon Maxwell. I was like ‘We’re not losing Game 5 at home’. And then Hakeem joins and says ‘No, we’ll never lose at home.'”
“I said ‘So all we have to do is win game 6, and we never will lose game 7 at home!’ So now, your mentality is almost encouraging. You have to have a delusional thought process if you wanna be an NBA player.”
What Kenny Smith got wrong about the Rockets’ 1995 comeback series
The Phoenix Suns were the no. 2 seeds in the 1995 Western Conference Playoffs. They finished the regular season with a stout 59-23 record and were among the favorites in the West.
As a result, unlike what Kenny Smith said, the Suns had the homecourt advantage in their series. This meant that Games 5 & 7 were played in Phoenix, rather than Houston (implied by Kenny).
The Rockets recorded relatively close wins in Games 5 & 7 of that series on the road. They took those fixtures with scorelines of 114-110 and 115-114 respectively. However, they did blow Phoenix out in Game 6 at home (116-103).
Ultimately, the Jet seemed to get carried away with his stories, and perhaps even went a tad too far in trying to counsel Stephen Curry and Co.
How should Stephen Curry and his Warriors approach the rest of this series?
Steph has largely been blameless when it comes to the state that the Warriors are in. The 2022 NBA Finals MVP recorded a triple-double with 31 points last night, despite the loss.
It comes down to being able to consistently get buckets from the rest of the roster. Klay Thompson stank up Crypto.com Arena with his bricks last night, as well as in earlier games.
Both Klay and Poole need to be better at picking their spots and getting favorable looks. In addition, the Warriors will also need more out of Wiggins offensively. Some contributions from Donte DiVincenzo would also go a long way.
Ultimately, they don’t have the size to bang with the Lakers’ frontcourt. Their main hope is to generate relatively open jump-shots.
