Middle of the Road – Portland Trail Blazers
In terms of being a favorable or unfavorable matchup for the Utah Jazz, the Portland Trail Blazers pretty much land right on the fence. The regular season series was essentially a toss-up as they both went 2-2 against the other with all but one of the Blazers wins being an absolute blowout.
I’ve seen quite a few Jazz fans pining after this matchup, and while I certainly understand that over the Warriors or Rockets, they may also want to be careful what they wish for. Damian Lillard has seemingly always had his way with the Jazz. Jusuf Nurkic is a tough cover for Rudy Gobert. And guys like CJ McCollum, Al-Farouq Aminu and even former Jazzman Rodney Hood are no slouches.
The Blazers are deep and well-coached and would be no easy opponent for Utah to face out of the gates. Especially with a daunting home court advantage at the Moda Center, the Jazz would be even worse off if they didn’t finish with the higher seed.
On the flip side, the Blazers aren’t known for an overwhelming D, which could hurt them in the playoffs. Likewise, their ability to maintain composure in postseason play is questionable at best. Last year’s first-round sweep at the hands of the New Orleans Pelicans despite being the higher seed was a perfect example of that.
Lastly, if Enes Kanter is going to receive any sort of significant minutes for the Blazers in the postseason, he’ll be an absolute liability defensively. Teams have already started taking advantage of him against the Blazers, and you can expect the Jazz would do the same, similar to how they treated Carmelo Anthony in last year’s first round.
This matchup would really be a toss-up between two evenly matched teams. I truly could see either advancing, which makes it a perfect middle road option for the Jazz.
How would they get here:
Utah has one of the easiest schedules down the stretch while Portland has one of the hardest, meaning we could see a lot of shuffling between the three and six spots, if not the seeds above and below as well. As such, there’s plenty of scenarios where Utah and Portland would meet, most likely in either the 3-6 or 4-5 bout as mentioned before with the Houston Rockets.