Portland Trail Blazers 101 - Utah Jazz 86: Game Recap

The Utah Jazz (49-31) lost to the playoff hungry Portland Trail Blazers (40-40) last night to the final score of 101-86. High scoring point guard Damian Lillard dropped 59 or that 101 points, and absolutely took control early. The Jazz did not show up for this game. Neither did I, as I wasn’t at home and even after half a day still haven’t seen it.

I’ve been advised not to watch the brutality.

Looking at the box score I really don’t know how to explain this game. Portland didn’t have a single turn over until garbage time. Only one Blazers’ player went to the line, and it was Lillard going 14/16. Portland also played just 7 guys for most of this game, and still managed 12 offensive rebounds. Outside of Lillard the team shot: 4/20, 3/8, 1/8, 6/7, 3/7, and 1/5. And the Jazz lost.

Portland went up early, Raul Neto sparked a comeback (thanks Clark!), and was +14 in his 13 minutes of action. Got injured. And missed the rest of the game. In his place, Shelvin Mack did not play that well.

You can’t point fingers at this stage of the season. You either win as a team or lose as a team. But I guess we can point fingers for the Blazers. The rest of their team was trash, but Lillard helped them stay between +10 to +20 for most of the game.

His 59 points was 3rd most ever scored on the franchise in one game.

Awful.

Just awful. The Los Angeles Clippers also won, so now the Jazz are 5th in the West. With a performance like this either the team isn’t capable of focusing in on the most important games, or that George Hill and Raul Neto are way more important than we had previously presumed.

Gordon Hayward had 21 / 5 / 4. Rudy Gobert had 13 / 11 / 4. It wasn’t great beyond that. Rudy did get the three rebounds he needed to achieve 1000 points / 1000 rebounds / 200 blocks in a season. But it’s bitter sweet.

Utah has two more games left this regular season. Golden State Warriors, in their gym, in the third game in four nights, with Kevin Durant back in action. And then Fan Appreciation night at home hosting the San Antonio Spurs - after Gregg Popovich has declared that his team is not playing well enough to deserve resting players anymore.

HOORAY!