It was not the start the Trail Blazers were hoping for, but considering their week leading up to the season opener, perhaps it should have been expected.
After losing their final three preseason games by an average of 26.3 points, the Trail Blazers suffered a similar fate in their regular season opener against the Jazz with a 120-100 loss Wednesday night in an almost entirely empty Moda Center.
“We have to get better,” said Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts. “It’s about us right now. Any NBA season, you worry about your opponent and you prepare for your opponent but right now, we’ve got to get better.”
The Trail Blazers have now lost their last two home openers after winning an NBA-record 18-straight.
The issues that arose early and often Wednesday night versus the Jazz weren’t all that dissimilar from the issues that punctuated Portland’s preseason play. The primary culprit: the Trail Blazers continue to allow far to many three-pointers, both in terms of attempts and makes -- Utah set a franchise record for three-pointers in a first half with 13 and finished the game with 19 on 50 attempts -- many of which were relatively open Wednesday night.
“Certainly they rotated the ball well,” said Stotts. “When we did get up and pressure Mitchell and Clarkson, they moved the ball well. They got a lot of them in transition as well. That’s what (Utah) is doing this year. They took 50-some threes in their last preseason game, they got 50 tonight. That’s their style of play.”
To make matters worse, the Blazers were out-rebounded 59-40 and the ultra efficient offense that they’ve relied upon throughout the years to stay competitive, even when their defense was one of the worst in the league, was nowhere to be found.
There was Carmelo Anthony going 0-of-5 from the field in the first half. And Robert Covington scoring one point in his first 16 minutes.
But the most devastating issue, even more so than Utah’s three-point shooting, was Damian Lillard going scoreless on 0-of-5 shooting in the first half. While the Trail Blazers are supposedly deeper than they’ve been in years, they’re not at the point where they can overcome their best player going scoreless in a half, something Lillard has only done nine times in his professional career.
“To put it short: I just didn’t make shots,” said Lillard. “They did give me a lot of attention, they came out from the jump and they was blitzing and trapping, I wasn’t really expecting that. But I just didn’t play a good offensive game and once they built up a lead and we weren’t getting enough stops, it just made it harder when you keep playing against a team in the halfcourt.”
Between Utah’s accuracy and Portland’s lack thereof and Lillard, Anthony, Covington and Derrick Jones Jr. combining for just 10 points, the Jazz took a 21-point lead into the intermission. That advantage would swell to 31 with the Jazz starting the third by outscoring Portland 18-8 in the first six minutes of the quarter.
With their own struggles putting the ball in the basket, and with no crowd to spur them on, Portland was never able to mount much of a comeback. They got no closer than 17 in the second half and with both teams turning the game over to end of the bench with more than four minutes to play, the Jazz were able to coast to the 22-point victory.
CJ McCollum led the Blazers with 23 points on 7-of-19 shooting, four rebounds, three assists and a block in 34 minutes. Jusuf Nurkic, playing his first regular season game at the Moda Center since March 2019, went for 13 points, three rebounds and three assists in just under 22 minutes.
Anthony finished the game 5-of-12 from the field for 15 points. Enes Kanter went a perfect 7-of-7 from the field for 14 points to go with eight rebounds and Gary Trent Jr. added 11 points and three assists in 26 minutes.
Seven Jazz players finished in double figures, with both Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert putting up 20 points. Mike Conley had 18 and both Bojan Bogdanovic and Jordan Clarkson finished with 15.
With their opener over, the Blazers now have two days off over the holiday before hosting the Houston Rockets, a team that had their opener postponed due to an outbreak of COVID-19, Saturday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.