Though the deck was stacked against them, the Jazz came alive against the Trail Blazers
It would have been difficult to find someone that thought the Utah Jazz were going to win on Thursday night. It would have been even more difficult to find someone that thought the Jazz would put on a defensive clinic and blow out the Portland Trail Blazers.
The Jazz went into the game with the deck heavily stacked against them. It was the first time this season that the Trail Blazers were favorites to beat the Jazz, and for pretty good reason.
In the fourth game of the year against the Trail Blazers (yes, the Jazz have completed their season series against Portland and it’s not even Christmas yet), the Jazz were on the second night of a back-to-back and prior to Thursday had won just a single road game all season. To say that they’ve been a bad road team is an understatement.
From a roster standpoint, things were going to be difficult for the Jazz. Jordan Clarkson is sidelined for at least two weeks with a hamstring strain, John Collins is dealing with an illness and starting point guard Keyonte George suffered a foot injury on Wednesday night and did not travel with the team to Portland.
Oh, and the team’s leading scorer, Lauri Markkanen, who just returned from an eight-game absence because of a hamstring injury, missed Thursday’s game because it was the second night of a back-to-back.
You might be thinking that’s the end of the list of things that the Jazz would have to overcome on Thursday, but it’s not.
Wednesday night, shortly after the Jazz’s win over the New York Knicks at the Delta Center, the team hurried to get the airport so it could catch its flight to Portland. But due to issues with the airplane, they had to deplane and wait for another airplane.
The Jazz were supposed to be in Portland just after midnight, but instead they weren’t getting into bed until nearly 5 a.m.
That delay and late arrival to Portland meant that they didn’t spend the same amount of time walking through their gameplan at the arena prior to Thursday’s contest.
The Jazz were tired, behind schedule, shorthanded, underdogs who have struggled to play well on the road and what did they do?
They built up a 33-point lead over the Blazers, switched through man and zone defense with ease, completely took the Blazers out of their normal game and got contributions from across the roster en route to a 122-114 win that they frankly made look very easy.
“Really, really happy for these guys,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “We’re down some bodies at the moment and everybody dug in. A lot of different people participated. It wasn’t like it was one person who went nuts tonight and that’s what got us to win. There were a lot of people that had their moments.”
The Jazz got a nearly perfect offensive night from Simone Fontecchio who had 24 points on eight shots, Walker Kessler was nearing a triple double with 10 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocks and Collin Sexton finished with a team-high 27 points.
The last time the Jazz had been inside the Moda Center, it was a game where they were blown out and disappointed. They knew that they had a lot of things going against them on Thursday but they also knew that they weren’t going to lay down and let the Blazers walk all over them again.
“There’s been a lot of work behind the scenes by our team to address some of the issues that we had early in the season,” Hardy said.
“Tonight was a good reflection of the guys understanding that they’re a team and that the offense and the defense, they aren’t separate.”
The Jazz have just one more game on this short road trip. They’ll be in Sacramento to play the Kings on Saturday before returning home.
