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The Utah Jazz lost to the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, in a close game that ultimately gave the Blazers the season series, and the most overt tie-breaker. It bummed me out so much I didn't even post anything yesterday. In an attempt to make the loss less hurtful I looked at the entire history of the New Orleans / Utah Jazz and confirmed my suspicions. The Jazz don't win a lot in their gym. That doesn't mean that it's "okay" to continue losing there. It just is a fact. Utah has only won in Portland 28 times in the regular season, and only once EVER in the playoffs. This is a four decades old franchise that doesn't have a lot of wins against their division rival out on the coast. And of two of the 29 total wins the Blazers were in tank mode and sitting good players.
If you break down the wins, the Jazz average 103.04 ppg, and surrender 95.93. A few of them went to Overtime, and I think we all remember that one crazy game where Kyrylo Fesenko was putting in work in a two-man game with Carlos Boozer. It takes flukes like that to usually win in their gym. If you chart it out you get this:
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Going 29-75 against them on their homecourt makes this year's sweep in Portland a little easier to digest. The Blazers are just a bugaboo. (N.B. Some five year stretches have more games than other years because a) we face them in the playoffs, b) there were years where the two teams played five games against one another -- before expansion, c) some times there were lockouts that cut down the games there.) The overall end result is a 27.88 win % there.
The silver lining? It's an inverse relationship when these two teams play in Utah, and overall, the Jazz still lead head-to-head. That's still a pretty poopy silver lining if you ask me.
Portland gives almost EVERY team trouble there. Through every era. The Jazz, even in the NBA Finals years, didn't pick up a win there. The sky isn't falling. Portland is just legit when we didn't expect them to be.