I would posit that this game from Ish Smith is a bona fide REVENGE GAME, but now I’m thinking…does Smith even remember that he played for the Bucks once upon a time? If he’s forgotten that fact, that there would be no reason for him to play with the goal of exacting REVENGE.
Smith has played for a lot of teams in his career. I think he’s pretty close to the record for most franchises played for and he’s only 31 years old, which means he still has plenty of time to add more notches to his belt. The amount of teams he’s suited up for is so large that it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s forgotten some of them, especially at the beginning of his career when it seemed like he got shuffled around at every trade deadline.
Smith’s stint with the Bucks was the third shortest (in terms of minutes played) out of all those stops. Only his stints with the Grizzlies and Warriors were shorter. And Milwaukee was a dismal team at that time so there would be no reason to try to remember it. Most people remember the good times and forget the bad times. Playing for the Bucks in that era was definitely bad times.
So maybe my man Ish didn’t actually have a REVENGE GAME here. Maybe he just played well because he wanted his team to win. Crazy concept, I know.