{"id":500647,"date":"2026-02-24T09:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/500647\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T09:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:04:09","slug":"jabari-smith-jr-scores-31-as-rockets-steamroll-jazz-in-125-105-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/500647\/","title":{"rendered":"Jabari Smith Jr. scores 31 as Rockets steamroll Jazz in 125-105 win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">After being involved in a handful nail-biters recently, the Houston Rockets finally gave their fans a night to relax on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Houston hosted the Utah Jazz in a game that got out of hand quickly, as the Rockets held a double-digit lead through the entire second half and cruised to a 125-105 win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Jabari Smith Jr. led all scorers, finishing with 31 points and making 12 of his 17 field goal attempts. Amen Thompson scored 20, going a perfect eight-of-eight from the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Utah\u2019s Lauri Markkanen led the Jazz with 29 points, while Brice Sensabaugh added 26 off the bench.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The win lifts Houston to 35-21 on the season, as the Rockets hold the fourth seed in the Western Conference. They now lead the Los Angeles Lakers by one game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Monday\u2019s matchup marked Houston\u2019s third of four matchups with the Jazz in the 2025-26 season. Houston has now won two of its first three, with the final game slated for April 3 from Toyota Center.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kiwhtN\">More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being involved in a handful nail-biters recently, the Houston Rockets finally gave their fans a night to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,5145,7220,19697,590,21938,85],"class_list":["post-500647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-jabari-smith-jr","tag-nba","tag-rockets","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}