Trail Blazers at Jazz
The Utah Jazz just handed the Portland Trail Blazers their worst home loss since 2004. Portland will look to avenge that 30-point setback when it visits the Jazz on Christmas night in Salt Lake City.
Utah put together a dominating effort in pounding the Trail Blazers 120-90 on Friday as it knocked down 16-of-31 3-point attempts. Point guard Ricky Rubio hit all four of his 3-point attempts while contributing 24 points and eight assists and he followed up that performance with 12 points and a season-best 14 assists in Friday's 107-106 home loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The debacle against the Jazz is Portland's lone loss in the past five games and the Trail Blazers rebounded with a 121-118 overtime win over the visiting Dallas Mavericks on Sunday. "I think as long as we avenge ourselves for what happened the other night, we’ll be fine," Portland swingman Evan Turner told reporters in reference to the rematch with Utah.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, NBCS Northwest (Portland)
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (19-14): Star point guard Damian Lillard scored 33 points in the win over Dallas to mark the 12th time this season that he scored 30 or more points. Lillard was limited to 19 points on Friday against the Jazz, his lowest output while averaging 27.8 points over the past five games. Shooting guard CJ McCollum had 22 points against the Mavericks for his 16th 20-point effort of the season and he also moved into fifth place in franchise history with 718 career 3-pointers, passing Damon Stoudamire (717 from 1998-2005).
ABOUT THE JAZZ (16-18): Star shooting guard Donovan Mitchell scored 20 points against Oklahoma City and his 7-of-17 shooting effort halted a stretch of four straight games of being below 40 percent. He was especially frigid in the victory over Portland, when he scored a season-low three points on 1-of-10 shooting two nights after being 5-of-26 in a victory over the Golden State Warriors. Mitchell scored 20 or more points on 18 occasions and his 20.2 average is slightly below the 20.5 figure from last season, when he was runner-up to Philadelphia guard Ben Simmons in the Rookie of the Year balloting.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Jazz F Jae Crowder made four 3-pointers and scored 16 points in Friday's win over the Trail Blazers.
2. Terry Stotts, who became Portland's coach in 2012, is tied with Rick Adelman (1989-94) for second place on the franchise's all-time victories list with 291.
3. Utah C Rudy Gobert posted four straight double-doubles and has 28 overall.