It’s one thing to continuously lose on the road — it’s another thing altogether looking horrible while doing so.
The Portland Trail Blazers’ record away from the Moda Center fell to 1-10 Monday night following a 129-107 loss at the Utah Jazz (14-7). It’s the seventh time the Blazers (10-11) have lost on the road by at least 10 points, including the fourth by at least 15.
Portland’s 10 road losses have come by an average score of 119-105.
“It’s been tough,” Portland coach Chauncey Billups said. “Because we’re just such a different ball club on a road. I think we play this casualness a lot of times with no urgency. That’s dangerous. And at home, you can do that and a team can make a run and you got the crowd behind you and you can overcome a lot of times. On the road, you can’t do that. You’ve got to play with purpose. You got to play with urgency. You got to play with some IQ. You got to kind of understand what you’re going after every night. And when you don’t, you’ll get beat on the road. You really will and we’ve seen that way too much.”
The Blazers’ main problem has been defense and once again on Monday night, they made a poor three-point shooting team look good. The Jazz, one of the top long-range shooting teams in the NBA last season, got off to a slow start this season, making only 35.3% percent of their threes entering the game. But against the Blazers, Utah shot 41.3% (19 of 46) thanks to the likes of Jordan Clarkson, who made 6 of 10 threes despite entering the game shooting just 28.2%. He finished with 22 points. Donovan Mitchell led the Jazz with 30 points, while Rudy Gobert finished with 21 points and 16 rebounds.
But the offense has also been a mess the past two outings, which included a 118-103 loss at Golden State on Friday.
“I’ve just got to do a better job, maybe calling more plays and not letting us play in our secondary-break stuff, which has cost us turnovers at times,” Billups said. “And also, at times, maybe pay a little more attention to our rotations. Obviously, I take a lot of that on my shoulders.”
On Monday, the Blazers didn’t get much from Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum. Lillard, who scored 14 points at Golden State, finished with just 11 on 4-of-12 shooting against the Jazz. McCollum had 19 points and six assists.
Jusuf Nurkic and Anfernee Simons led Portland with 24 points each against the Jazz. Simons went 10 of 15 from the field ,while Nurkic also added 10 rebounds.
WHAT IT MEANS
The Blazers’ inability to play even average basketball on the road is alarming. Good thing for Portland it returns home Tuesday to play eight of its next nine games — and 11 of the next 15 — at the Moda Center.
LILLARD AND MCCOLLUM
Combined, the Blazers’ dynamic backcourt scored just 62 points in last two games. Portland is not going to win many games with production like that, regardless of how the rest of the team plays. Part of the problem, Billups said, is that the Blazers have been trying to run plays for everyone. But also, Billups said, Lillard has been a little banged up Monday after getting kneed in the hip.
“I don’t think Dame moved very well out there today,” Billups said. “It seemed like he wasn’t moving very well. I don’t think he was fluid in his movements. I even went to him at one point in the game and asked if he was alright ... but he wanted to stay in there and see if it would loosen up for him.”
When Lillard is ailing, Billups said, it’s on him to figure out other ways to score.
“We’ve got to find ways when that’s going on to still try to find a way to get wins,” Billups said. “No matter ... even if you use them as a decoy, (Lillard’s) still gonna get and garner the same coverages as if he was hot. He’s that great of a player. So, I think I got to do a better job of kind of using him a little more wisely when he’s hammered a little.”
GAME RECAP
In order to win the game, the Blazers would have to stay in the game and they did that in the first half. In the first quarter, Portland used a 12-4 run turn a 9-9 tie into a 21-13 lead after Simons hit a three with 1:42 remaining. But Utah scored eight points in that final 1:42 to trail just 23-21 entering the second quarter. McCollum scored nine points in the open period.
In the second, Utah slowly began to build a lead and went up 52-42 after Mitchell scored with 1:25 left in the half. But, just as the Jazz did at the end of the first quarter, the Blazers rallied late in the second to trail just 53-49 at halftime.
Nurkic had 13 points on 5-of-5 shooting in the quarter after going scoreless in the first. Gobert led the Jazz with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the first half.
Things began to unravel for the Blazers in the third. The Jazz opened with a 10-1 run to build a 63-50 lead. Mitchell scored eight points during the run, including six on two threes. The Jazz continued to pour it on and, after a Mitchell drive and a Rudy Gay three, built an 85-64 lead with 4:03 left.
“I thought the second quarter we hit some good spurts but we closed the quarter really well,” Billups said. “We just came out and had a tough third quarter. They started hitting some shots. I thought they exploited our coverage a few times.”
But the Blazers didn’t go quietly, and after Tony Snell hit a three just before the third quarter buzzer, they trailed just 94-84.
Simons scored 10 points in the quarter as the Blazers shot 66.7% from the field. Mitchell had 14 points for the Jazz, who shot 69.6%. Through three quarters, Lillard had just 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting, while Simons had 21 points off the bench.
“We lost a little confidence in what we were doing even though I thought we were in good shape,” Billups said.
But not for long.
In the fourth, Clarkson hit a three with 6:10 left to give the Jazz a 110-94 lead and that was just about that. Three minutes later, Bojan Bogdanovic hit a dagger three to give the Jazz a 122-102 lead.
“They kind of got going at home,” Billups said. ”That’s what they do at home.”
TONY SNELL
Snell started in place of Norman Powell, who missed the game with a quad injury. In 16 minutes, Snell scored eight points on 3-of-7 shooting.
NEXT UP
The Blazers return home to host Detroit (4-15) on Tuesday and San Antonio on Thursday. That starts a stretch in which the Blazers will play eight out of nine at the Moda Center.
-- Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
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