The Utah Jazz were destroyed tonight by the Portland Trail Blazers 137-117. At no point were the Jazz even close to being in this one. The Blazers took 48 threes and knocked down 19, good for 39.6%. The Jazz shot
41.9% from three but only took 31. Sometimes the game really is just about the numbers, but the Jazz defense was not good enough in this one. There was little resistance to everything the Blazers were doing, and they took advantage from start to finish.
Some of this was some really hot shooting by the Blazers, but there is something wrong with the way Utah is defending. Yes, the Jazz roster is not very talented defensively, but that is not unusual this season, or the past few seasons. Utah has been the literal worst defense in the NBA for the last three seasons, and you have to wonder why that is.
Probably the best performer for the Jazz in this one was Jusuf Nurkic, who put up an impressive line of 21 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists on great efficiency (9/12 from the field, 2/3 from three). But outside of Nurkic, there weren’t a lot of impactful performers. It’s a weird level of consistency with this team that they can’t seem to perform well on the road, yet have nights at home when they look incredible. Yes, the Jazz want to lose these games, so this is probably much ado about nothing. But it does make next year interesting, considering that the Jazz will be going all out to win. How much of this is the Jazz manufacturing a chance to lose versus something to worry about next year? We won’t really know until next season, and how things look with the new roster.
The good news from this is that the Jazz are now in sole possession of the 6th spot in draft position, which means a 96.2% chance to keep their pick. That’s about where you want to be, but at this point, why wouldn’t the Jazz go farther? Adding more lottery balls is the key, and the more chances you have to jump this draft, the better. Utah plays the Thunder next and is more than likely going to add to that lottery ball total once more. At what point do the Jazz start focusing on giving talent like Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks more time instead of veteran players for the rest of the season?
