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Utah had just defeated the Warriors 108-103 at home, after dropping two straight against the Magic & Rockets and were in line to face the Trailblazers in Portland.
Before the game started, the Portland Trailblazers were tied for the 5th spot in the Western Conference leaderboard while their opponents in the Utah Jazz sandwiched at the 10th position down below. However, the result left us all in a bit of a shock when the Jazz conjured a 30-point rout of the Trailblazers in what was their worst home loss since 2004.
Ricky Rubio led the charge and the visitors beat Portland 120-90 to take this one, as many across the league are still taking notice of Utah's tough early-season schedule. The Jazz have now won five of their last ten games while holding a 10-11 win-loss record on the road.
In the aftermath of the loss, Portland fell to the sixth spot in the air-tight Western Conference standings with an 18-14(0.563) record next to their name while Utah improves to 16-17(0.485) for a still ordinary 12th spot.
Let's draw out some key takeaways from this matchup that just might have set the Utah Jazz back on track, and takes them into a stretch where they'll play 12 of their next 17 games at home.
#1 Ricky Rubio came alive after a long period of time.
Rubio stepped up in one of the toughest road games for Utah and showed signs of resurgence. He finished with a game-high total of 28 points and dished out 8 assists as well in just the 27 minutes he was on the court.
He shot a decent 10-of-15 from the floor and converted all of his four 3-point attempts during the matchup.
This was only the second time in seven games that Rubio has scored above 20 points, which goes to show how inconsistent he has been for Utah so far this season.
"We've been playing better for the last couple weeks or so and I think the results are coming," Rubio said. "We feel pretty confident where we are at."
Well, the Jazz do look good as of late, and if Rubio's form could find him on a nightly basis, this team could render the traffic jam in the West even worse.
#2 The Jazz shot above 50% from the field and beyond the arc
Utah's three-point percentage is not even in the top 20 this season, but how they shot the ball against the Blazers told an entirely different. For a team whose average field-goal percentage(46.1%) is a mere 13th best in the league, the Jazz shot 47-of-85 from the field, bringing their conversion rate to 55.3% on the night.
They attempted 31 three-pointers collectively and netted 16 of them, with an emphatic 51% conversion from deep. What created the clear separation in the totals was the Trailblazers' shooting woes in contrast, as they shot a pedestrian 31% from downtown and 40% from the field.
Except for an uncharacteristic Donovan Mitchell who shot 1-of-10, most of the Jazz players converted on a majority of their trips on offense. Ingles dropped 6-of-11 while Crowder came off the bench to bucket 6-of-9 from the field. Veteran sharp-shooter Kyle Korver contributed 18 points off 7-of-12 shooting as well.
#3 Both Damian Lillard & CJ McCollum could not cross the 20-point mark
Despite dropping 40 points against the Grizzlies less than ten days ago, this was the third time in the last 4 games that CJ had scored less than 20 points. Although he has been averaging almost 21 points for the last 10 games, he finished with just 12 points, a couple of assists and 3 steals shooting 5-of-15 on the night.
He and his backcourt mate, Lillard, combined for just a meager total of 31 points. Both of them played at least 30 minutes but their efforts were lost to Portland's cause.
On the other hand, this was just Lillard's second score below 20 in the last 5 games as he has been averaging more than 27 points per game in the month of December. He shot just 7-of-16 on the night but contributed with 3 steals and a couple of blocks.
