SLC Dunk<\/a><\/p>\nDeni Avdija\u2019s Workload. Avdija has been outstanding and his ascent to stardom has been the biggest non-FBI-related story of the Blazers\u2019 season.<\/p>\n
Avdija does a lot of heavy lifting for the Blazers and the workload may finally be taking a toll. He has played in every game, leading the entire NBA in total minutes played (1,272.5).<\/p>\n
Avdija\u2019s minutes have steadily grown as the season has progressed:<\/p>\n
October (6 games): 32.4 minutes per gameNovember (14 games): 34.8 minutes per gameDecember (14 games): 36.7 minutes per gameJanuary (2 games): 38.6 minutes per game<\/p>\n
On top of that, he plays a very physical brand of basketball and his 353 total free throw attempts are also tops in the league.<\/p>\n
Over his last eight games, Avdija has seen a drop-off in free throw shooting, particularly late in games. During that stretch, he is shooting 79.4% (31-39) on free throws in the first half, but just 61.9% (26-42) in the second half.<\/p>\n
When Avdija rests, can the Blazers manage to at least tread water against the Jazz?<\/p>\n
Caleb Love\u2019s recent play. Is Love just on a hot streak? Is he becoming a consistently impactful NBA role player? Is he a future star?<\/p>\n
Over his past seven games, the 24-year-old rookie is playing nearly 30 minutes per night. During that stretch, he has averaged 17.3 points, while shooting 43.5% on 8.9 three-point attempts per game. That\u2019s big-time production for a player that went undrafted in 2025.<\/p>\n
But it isn\u2019t just that the shots are falling in recent games. He\u2019s doing a lot more than simply catching kickout passes and launching threes. With so many players missing time, Love has become a valuable piece of the Blazers\u2019 offense, playing critical minutes in close games, and providing much-needed ballhandling and offensive creation when Avdija rests or sees double teams.<\/p>\n
No Utah Love. Lake Oswego native Kevin Love (no relation to Caleb) is officially listed as out for Monday night\u2019s game. Now in his 18th season, Love has played in 20 of Utah\u2019s 34 games (2 starts), scoring 7.2 points per game.<\/p>\n
Love seems to enjoy playing against his hometown team. In 28 career games against the Blazers, he has averaged 17.8 points per game, tied for his third-highest average against any opponent.<\/p>\n
Offensive Fireworks. The Jazz can score in bunches. They are seventh in the NBA in points per game at 119.7 and play at the fourth-fastest pace. They rank second in assists per game (30) behind an offense that makes heavy use of off-ball screens, cutting, player movement, and passing.<\/p>\n
Lauri Markkanen is one of the game\u2019s elite shooters. His 27.9 points per game ranks 11th in the league. Markkanen is supported by third-year guard Keyonte George, who is in the midst of a breakout season, averaging 24.5 points and 6.9 assists per game.<\/p>\n
The problem for the Jazz is their defense, which has sunk to last place in the league rankings. No team allows more points or three-pointers than the Jazz. Expect both teams to light up the scoreboard in this one.<\/p>\n
If the Jazz get a top-eight pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, they keep it. If their pick falls outside of the top eight, they owe it the already-loaded Oklahoma City Thunder. With that in mind, James Hansen from SB Nation Affiliate SLC Dunk believes that the Jazz should tank again<\/a>:<\/p>\nYes, it would be nice to win some games and maybe even push for the play-in. But Utah would then miss out on another piece to build around this young core. Making sure they keep their pick will lead to the \u201clonger-term rewards.\u201d If Utah keeps their pick, and maybe for once gets lucky come lottery night, they would have a core truly capable of building towards championship contention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz meet for the second time this season Monday night at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,56618,37790,423,6,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-518205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers-game-previews","10":"tag-blazers-gameday-coverage","11":"tag-jazz","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-utah","14":"tag-utah-jazz","15":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115842940012538571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}