{"id":519261,"date":"2026-01-06T01:26:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/519261\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T01:26:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:26:24","slug":"game-preview-utah-jazz-vs-portland-trail-blazers-battle-of-the-most-improved-players-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/519261\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Preview: Utah Jazz vs. Portland Trail Blazers\u2014 Battle of the Most Improved Players"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jazz (12-22) roll into Portland tonight to face the Trail Blazers, (16-20) looking to get back to their winning ways. Or, perhaps, continue their tanking ways? Utah is 3-7 in their last 10, which is bad, but still amounts to 50% of the Indiana Pacers\u2019 win total and 33% of the 4th-worst Washington Wizards\u2019 wins. So, maybe the Jazz aren\u2019t tanking. They\u2019re sort of \u201cBradley-ing.\u201d A Bradley is an armored fighting vehicle that looks like a tank. It has armor, it has tracks, it has some pretty big guns, (see video below) but it\u2019s not a tank and it\u2019s not built to win a fight against a tank. It appears that the Jazz, as currently constructed, are not built to defeat the tank in Indiana. They\u2019re not even built to defeat New Orleans, who aren\u2019t even tanking, as Atlanta owns their pick\u2014they\u2019re just very, very bad.<\/p>\n

Battle of the Most Improved: Deni Avdija vs. Keyonte George\"Jan<\/p>\n

Jan 3, 2026; San Antonio, Texas, USA; Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija (8) shoots in between San Antonio Spurs guard De’aaron Fox (4) and forward\/center Kelly Olynyk (8) in the second half at Frost Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Blazers\u2019 small forward Deni Avdija started to appear on NBA junkies\u2019 radar during the 2023-2024 season in Washington. He jumped from 9.2 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game to 14.7\/7.2\/3.8. Then he did it again the next season, averaging 16.9\/7.3\/3.9 for Portland. He has come into his own this year, making an even bigger and more visible jump to a whopping 25.7\/7.3\/7.1. 13\/4.4. He\u2019s a joy to watch. In short, he gets buckets and he helps other people get buckets. He can posterize you, but he usually doesn\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n

Keyonte, for his part, has made a similar ascent in a shorter amount of time in the League. He started as a rookie with a per-game average of 13.0\/2.8\/4.4. Last season he improved to 16.8\/3.8\/5.6, but he still had doubters, yours truly included. This season he is turning heads, throwing a wrench into the tanking plans, and leaving more fans thinking more carefully about offering him as some afterthought piece in a trade built to make the team worse. He is currently putting up 24.5\/4.2\/6.9. Like Avdija, he is now a critical part of his team\u2019s offense and has improved in every season since 2023. He is a walking bucket and has improved his distribution skills considerably. While trying to remain as neutral as possible, if I had a vote in the MIP awards I would give ithe nod to Avdija, but if you\u2019re a Jazz fan it\u2019s still pretty cool that this is a conversation at all.<\/p>\n

Injury Report:<\/p>\n

According to ESPN<\/a>, it looks like the Jazz are trying to win tonight, with a probably starting lineup of Keyonte\/Svi\/Brice\/Lauri\/Flip. As always\u2014as dumb as it sounds\u2014the Jazz have to outscore the Blazers, because they will probably find it difficult to get stops. But hey, it\u2019s pretty fun to watch them get so many buckets, which has made them something of a cult League Pass follow in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Portland is far more afflicted by injuries than Utah, also according to ESPN<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If this turns into an offensive, defense-optional slugfest, the Jazz have a chance. If not, the Blazers probably take it.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

How to Tune In<\/p>\n

When:\u00a08:00 PM MT<\/p>\n

Where:\u00a0Moda Center, Portland, Oregon<\/p>\n

Channel:\u00a0KJZZ, Jazz+<\/p>\n

Radio: 1280\/97.5 The Zone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jazz (12-22) roll into Portland tonight to face the Trail Blazers, (16-20) looking to get back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[224,676,7,7008,125,65885,980,499,126,423,5673,2038,5088,2289,955,7211,6,478,687,13399,474,5592,1617,422,427,3972,1405,468],"class_list":["post-519261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-utah-jazz","tag-ace-bailey","tag-atlanta","tag-basketball","tag-blake-wesley","tag-damian-lillard","tag-de39aaron-fox","tag-deni-avdija","tag-georges-niang","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-jazz","tag-jerami-grant","tag-jrue-holiday","tag-jusuf-nurkic","tag-kelly-olynyk","tag-keyonte-george","tag-matisse-thybulle","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans","tag-portland","tag-robert-williams-iii","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-the-jazz","tag-trail-blazers","tag-utah","tag-utah-jazz","tag-utahjazz","tag-walker-kessler","tag-washington-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519261","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=519261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}