PORTLAND, Ore. — Before we get into what’s going on with the Utah Jazz, a brief word from your sponsor.
This article is brought to you by panic. Panic — if you’re not panicking, then you didn’t watch the game.
(A proud sponsor of the Utah Jazz fanbase)
The Jazz’s Saturday night 124-107 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers was the most alarming loss of a three-game road trip in which the Jazz were swept after coming off a home loss. That’s four consecutive losses, the most in a row for the Jazz this season.
First it was Monday’s loss to the shorthanded Houston Rockets when Eric Gordon went off for 50 points. Then, DeMar DeRozan DeMoralized the Jazz in San Antonio. Then, the Jazz went cold in Denver on the second night of a back-to-back. And finally, after a day of rest, the Jazz put up an incredibly poor defensive effort against the Trail Blazers.
There have been some built-in excuses along the way. The losses against the Rockets and the Nuggets can be explained away, but hindsight does not make them look great. No matter, the Jazz should have been able to beat the Spurs and Blazers or at least make them competitive games.
But, in Portland, the Jazz didn’t even give themselves a chance, instead emptying the bench and playing garbage minutes in a game that was lost early.
Portland guard Damian Lillard has been on a tear lately, averaging 52 points last week and being named Western Conference Player of the Week, then putting up 36-point and 48-point scoring nights before dropping 51 on the Jazz on Saturday. There was no reason to think Lillard was going to let up and the Jazz should have been more prepared for what they were going to face.
Rather than allow their preparation show why they have been a top-10 defensive team, the Jazz seemed to lose their footing.
“Our execution defensively has to be better,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said after the game.
A bit of an understatement.
Even Rudy Gobert, the Jazz’s anchoring two-time Defensive Player of the Year, was made to look largely ineffective against Hassan Whiteside, and Royce O’Neale, the Jazz’s most ardent perimeter defender, was a bystander in the loss.
The Jazz have only had short stints of passable defense during the last few games, falling away from what they’ve built as their brand. It is going to take 48-minute defensive efforts to make it through the remainder of the Jazz schedule, and from the way things looked against Portland, the Jazz are far from being able to produce such a game.
Additionally, any kind of excuse surrounding Mike Conley was played away on Saturday. Conley returned to the starting lineup in Portland and played well, finishing with 22 points and going 4-of-6 from long distance.
“No need to panic,” Donovan Mitchell said. “But, we’ve got to figure it out.”
Yes. They do.
The Jazz have been allowing guards to torch them, they’ve over and under helped on defensive rotations, they’ve played more in space than they have bodied opponents, and they’ve done so in repeated fashion.
“The great teams, the team that we’re trying to be, it happens one game,” Mitchell said. “It doesn’t happen four straight.”
The glaring problem that has Jazz fans ready to elbow each other out of the way in order to hit the panic button is that this four-game stretch was exactly what was most feared after the Jazz went on 19-2 stretch that included a 10-game win streak.
The Jazz’s high point of the season came against a profusion of the NBA’s bottom dwellers and there was the fear that when the Jazz’s schedule turned to the league’s more elite teams, they could falter.
The thing is, the Jazz are not going to have another stretch of playing under-performing teams this season. They will have to maintain their position in the West by doing exactly what Mitchell said — figure it out.
After playing three games in four nights, the Jazz have been gifted their first extended respite in a long time. They’ll be off three days before they face the Nuggets on Wednesday at Vivint Arena.
That game though is the first of five that lead into the All-Star break, and each game is against a potent team that has either already beaten the Jazz or have the ability to. From now through Feb. 12 the Jazz play the Nuggets, Trail Blazers, Rockets, Mavericks and Heat. Of that group the Mavericks are the only team that has not handed the Jazz one of their 17 losses this season.
The Jazz entered Sunday fourth in the Western Conference, just two games out of the third seed, despite their recent tailspin. But, the Rockets, Mavericks and Thunder are leering with the want to increase their positioning, with just two and a half games separating the fourth and seventh seeds in the West.
The Jazz are going to need to do better, and they need to do it now.