Utah Jazz vs Blazers: Winning streak ends but playoffs still in sight

Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum combined for 50 points to lead the Portland Trail Blazers over the Utah Jazz, ending Utah’s win streak.

In their first taste of action since the All-Star break, the Utah Jazz managed to do something they hadn’t done in over a month. They lost a basketball game, snapping what had been an 11-game win streak.

The Portland Trail Blazers came out of the gates recognizing that their Friday night bout with the Jazz was crucial for playoff seeding. Prior to the contest, the Jazz led the Blazers 2-0 in the season series and a win on Friday would have clinched a victory in what is a very tightly contested playoff race.

Instead, Utah fell flat and the Blazers backcourt duo of Damian Lillarnd and CJ McCollum combined for 50 points to lead Portland to a 100-81 win.

Despite the loss (and wins from New Orleans, Portland, Denver and the LA Clippers), the Jazz still have the easiest remaining schedule and a back-to-back against a blatantly tanking Dallas Mavericks team to regain composure.

Of course, leave it to Jazz Twitter to go doom and gloom after an understandable loss.

What happened?

The Blazers led almost the entire night and came out executing on defense and knocking down shots on offense. They prevented the Jazz from doing what they want to do. The Jazz also really lost their focus after closing out the first quarter very well. They were sloppy from that point forward.

The game looked out of reach at 18, but the Jazz fought back and looked poised to make a valiant closing run in the last five minutes to narrow the victory margin (or hopefully, you know, win), then McCollum hit back-to-back-to-back daggers, ending the Jazz’s hopes of a comeback run.

I’ll add another thought from Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune that really summarizes the situation —

Who did things?

Donovan Mitchell looked great for most of the night. He had a couple of hot stretches in the first half where he scored in bunches and knocked down multiple threes. He cooled off in the second half, though, and didn’t have much help outside of Rudy Gobert.

Joe Ingles had multiple sloppy passes, Ricky Rubio was way out of sync and Derrick Favors was mostly uninvolved.

There were a few highlights worth sharing, as usual.

Fortunately for the Jazz, they have three more games at home. While the next game against Dallas should be a win (Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 this week for explicitly stating they were tanking), the Jazz close the home-stand against Houston and Minnesota.

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Houston is now the sole owner of an 11-game win streak and the longest active run in the NBA. It would be a sweet redemption to end Houston’s streak, who may come to Utah with 12 straight should they win Sunday.

The Minnesota Timberwolves also appear to be in dire straights after Jimmy Butler left their game against Houston with what looked like a scary knee injury.

Tune in to watch the Jazz play the Mavericks at 7pm MST on Saturday night.