PORTLAND — Two division rivals are trending in opposite directions after the Jazz were blown out 137-117 by the Portland Trail Blazers Monday.
Utah has now lost four in a row after winning consecutive games against playoff teams. The Trail Blazers, on the other hand, won their third straight game and continue to hold onto a play-in spot in the Western Conference.
“It’s a poor game for three quarters defensively,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “We’re not doing a good job physically containing the ball. We’re not doing a good job mentally anticipating the help on the weak side, and so tonight we just looked slow. Our brains looked slow and our feet looked slow.”
Along with Keyonte George, Portland’s Deni Avdija has taken a leap this season and should be one of the finalists for the NBA’s most improved player award with George.
Avdija had all of his skills on display Monday night, nearly recording a triple-double as he poured in 33 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. He helped orchestrate a strong offensive performance from one of the youngest teams in the league.
The Blazers came out hot to begin the game, knocking down eight of their 19-made 3-point shots in the opening quarter. Portland jumped out to a quick 10-point lead behind Shaedon Sharpe’s 11 first-quarter points.
Sharpe was in rhythm all game, scoring 29 points in just 27 minutes of action. He also buried five 3-pointers on eight attempts — more than half of the Blazers’ shot attempts were behind the arc.
“They made 19 threes, they made eight in the first quarter,” Hardy said. “Are there some that are just great shots by really talented players? Of course, but I think the theme right now defensively is we have to up our physicality. We have to up our intensity and we have to up our anticipation on the weak side. I just thought we were late on all those aspects tonight.”
The fast-paced nature of Portland’s offense quickly caught Utah off guard, and the team never quite recovered. Careless turnovers killed any chance of a comeback attempt as the Jazz conceded 27 points off turnovers, 12 more than the Blazers allowed.
It was a relatively quiet night for Utah’s two potential All Star players: Lauri Markkanen totaled 22 points and George finished with just 15, his lowest point total since Dec. 7.
For Jusuf Nurkic, it was a good outing against his former team. The Bosnian big man secured a double-double with 21 points and 12 rebounds.
Portland made all the necessary hustle plays to win, which may have helped see plenty of shots go through the net. Sidy Cissoko, who came in shooting just 31% from 3-point range, made the most of the Blazers’ hot night, going a perfect 4-for-4 from deep, even banking in one of his makes.
It was that kind of night for the Blazers, but the Jazz will need a much better effort going forward as they look to break out of the slump. The Jazz face the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder next, who will be coming off their own blowout loss after losing to the Hornets 124-97.
“Defense is tiring, defense is not fun but defense is what gives you the opportunity to win,” Hardy said. “We’re trying to build sustainable habits, a sustainable approach for long-term success and our focus on the defensive side of the ball individually has to go up.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
