{"id":599548,"date":"2026-02-12T20:13:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T20:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/599548\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T20:13:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T20:13:44","slug":"portland-trail-blazers-vs-utah-jazz-preview-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/599548\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland Trail Blazers vs Utah Jazz Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Portland Trail Blazers are taking on the Utah Jazz on the second night of a back-to-back right before the NBA All-Star break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Portland is coming off of a loss in Minnesota to the Timberwolves before flying to Utah for this game. Before their recent loss, the Blazers won three straight. They will be looking to get back into the win column tonight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Jazz are winners of two straight coming into this contest, including a blowout win last night over the Sacramento Kings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Portland Trail Blazers (26-29) at Utah Jazz &#8211; (18-37) Thur. Feb 12 &#8211; 6:00pm Pacific<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">How to stream: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass everywhere else<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Trail Blazers Injuries: Not released yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Jazz injuries: Walker Kessler, Jaren Jackson Jr., Keyonte George, Elijah Harkless (out); Lauri Markannen (questionable).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Clingan in the paint. The Jazz lost center Walker Kessler early in the season, and do not have a true backup center. Former Blazer Jusuf Nurkic is starting at the five, but in the minutes he is off the court there is no one to stop Clingan from imposing his will on the glass. If Portland is able to leverage that into a massive rebounding advantage, it gives them a good chance to come away with a win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Turnover battle. The Blazers are dead last in the NBA in turnovers per game with 16.5 per game. Not far ahead are the Jazz who average 15.3 per game, good for 28th in the NBA. If either team is able to take care of the ball better than average or force the other into mistakes it could swing the outcome of the game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7033033\/2026\/02\/11\/utah-jazz-tanking-nba-victor-wembanyamathe-the-bounce\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Athletic\u2019s Zach Harper<\/a> talked about the Jazz\u2019s tanking and how they are prioritizing losing without sitting their stars at this point in the season (subscription required):<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">In the last two games, the Jazz started Jaren Jackson Jr., Lauri Markkanen and Jusuf Nurki\u0107 . Granted, Nurk isn\u2019t a star player, but he\u2019s being lumped in with All-Stars Markkanen and JJJ for a reason here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">All three players started in Orlando and in Miami this past week. All three combined to play zero fourth-quarter minutes. In both games. All three clocked in at 25 minutes in the first three quarters and then sat in the fourth quarters of both games. In Orlando, the tanking worked like a charm. The Jazz gave up a 33-23 quarter to the Magic and lost the game by three. It did not work Monday night against the Heat. Utah accidentally won that game 115-111.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers are taking on the Utah Jazz on the second night of a back-to-back right&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599549,"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-599548","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\/116059497719660898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599548","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=599548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}