In spite of another rough night from Donovan Mitchell, the Utah Jazz were able to capture their second straight win, this time over the Portland Trail Blazers.
After the Utah Jazz dropped a weird one to the Orlando Magic in Mexico City, then followed that up by running out of gas late against the Houston Rockets, the casual crowd and glass-half-empty folks had seemingly lost faith in the team. We won’t judge them too harshly; the Jazz had a sputtering offense and were three games under .500 at the time.
Just a handful of days later, though, it looks like the Zen contingent of Jazzland has been rewarded for keeping the faith. Following their big win over the defending champion Golden State Warriors earlier in the week, the Jazz impressed again on Friday, stunning the Trail Blazers in Portland with a 120-90 win at the Rose Garden.
As was also the case against the Dubs, Donovan Mitchell failed to ignite the masses with a ho-hum scoring effort — he was 1-of-10 for just three points. However, Tricky Ricky and the Splash Uncles (Jazz players or a hipster band befitting PDX — you decide!) picked up the slack in a major way.
Ricky Rubio — Utah’s ultimate pendulum player — paced the Jazz with 24 points, hitting 10-of-15 shots from the field and all four of his attempts from 3-point range. Aside from committing five turnovers, he also executed the Jazz offense with precision, notching eight assists.
It wasn’t just one of his better shooting nights, well…ever, but an important bounce-back performance after Rubio missed all eight of his attempts against Golden State.
Meanwhile, Kyle Korver and Joe Ingles combined for 33 points, nine boards, nine assists and five 3-pointers. Korver’s 18 points were his most since re-joining the Jazz last month; the Jazz outscored the Blazers by a team-high 26 when he was on the floor.
When the two are both on, spacing is huge and the Jazz offense really soars.
Jae Crowder played well once again, notching 16 points in this game and hitting four triples of his own. He’s now made 12 threes over the last three games. Crowder has had great energy in games all season; it’s nice when his actual production match the effort.
The somewhat-struggling Royce O’Neale played just 10 minutes and missed his only shot attempt. He’s now been held scoreless in consecutive contests. On the flip side, Dante Exum‘s climb out of Quin Snyder’s doghouse continues. He equaled Rubio’s eight dimes and hit 4-of-7 shots for eight points in 21 minutes played.
On the whole, the Jazz hit 16 3-pointers for the second consecutive game. They’re now up over 34 percent for the year, which isn’t great, but is a massive improvement from where they were just a few, short days ago.
Defensively, this was the fifth-straight game the Jazz have held an opponent under 100 points per 100 possessions and their third-straight against a top 10 offense. The Jazz have been the NBA’s best D over this span and are fast-approaching top-five territory for the season.
This, more than anything, makes me confident that the sleeping giant is about to get woke.
Next up for the Jazz is the Oklahoma City Thunder to complete the back-to-back on Saturday.