In this game and probably every game he plays, Ish Smith sorta looked like a budget version of Chris Paul. A dollar store version, if you will. He does many of the same things: he passes, he shoots midrange jumpers off the pick and roll, he is short, and you know he’s gotta go fast at all times. He’s definitely not the three-point shooter that Paul is, and if you look at advanced stats the difference widens from “big” to “ginormous,” but for the purposes of this description we can just say they have some similarities and leave it at that.
I did forget a free throw at the end of this video and I’m too lazy to go back and retrieve it. It was at the end of the game and it was moderately clutch because it put the Pistons up five with fourteen seconds to go. It was also moderately unclutch because he missed the other one. If you really want to know what it looked like, you can imagine this scenario in your head: short black guy steps up to the line. He just missed the first free throw. The crowd is streaming for the exits. All the players just want the game to end. Short black guy gets the ball from the ref, dribbles it a few times, spins it around a bit, then shoots a standing set shot from fifteen feet. It splashes through the net. Short black guy has nineteen points now instead of eighteen.
That’s pretty much exactly how it went down. If watching all that sounds exciting to you, then I’m sorry.