In Jabari Smith Jr.’s rookie season with Houston, the Rockets won 22 games. In the former Auburn standout’s second season, Houston posted a 41-41 record. In Smith’s third season, the Rockets went 52-30 and will make their first appearance in the NBA playoffs since 2020 on Sunday night.

“I think we all expected us to be in the playoffs this year,” Smith said. “That was our goal. That was our goal when we first got the new coaches and new culture and stuff. And we’re here. That’s what we expected. That’s what we wanted. And now it’s just time for us to make the most of it and live an opportunity. It don’t come easy. It’s not something easy. It’s a hard league, so take advantage of when you’re here and play it like it’s your last.”

When Smith joined Houston as the third selection in the 2022 NBA Draft, Stephen Silas was the Rockets’ coach. In 2023, Houston brought in former Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka.

Udoka led Houston to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference field in his second season. The Rockets start their best-of-seven first-round series against the Golden State Warriors at 8:30 p.m. CDT Sunday at the Toyota Center in Houston. TNT will televise the game.

“It’s a lot of fun, a lot of detail, what I expected,” Smith said of the postseason preparations over the past week. “But it’s fun. You just kind of focus on one team and just be present in that one team and figure out ways to stop them, figure out ways to score against them. So it’s fun. It’s everything I thought it would be.”

The Rockets had a 2-3 record during the regular season against the Warriors, who finished only four games behind Houston in the conference standings but are the No. 7 seed for the playoffs.

In the previous 10 seasons, Golden State has won the NBA championship four times and lost in the finals twice.

“It’s kind of like the standard almost, like the blueprint,” Smith said. “Honestly, the Warriors have won so many games and done so much in the past 10 years or whatever, it’s like you kind of test yourself against them with guys like Draymond (Green) and Steph (Curry) over there who have done winning and done it at the highest level. It’s like you kind of test yourself against them to see how hard they play and see how much you prepared.

“It’s kind of like an eye-opener where you can go beat those teams, you can go compete against those teams. It’s also an eye-opener where you can end up down plenty to those teams so quick. So it just shows how much of a complete game you got to play against good teams like that — good veterans and well-coached teams.”

Smith averaged 12.2 points and 7.0 rebounds per game during the 2024-25 season. A broken hand limited Smith to 57 games. When Smith played, Houston posted a 40-17 record. Without him, the Rockets went 12-13 this season.

Smith’s role changed when he returned to the court. In the first 188 games of his NBA career, Smith started every one. He came off the bench in his first game back on Feb. 21 and had only six starts in the remaining 24 games, although his playing time remained about the same.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.