Dec 11 AT Utah Jazz After a night off Portland travels to Salt Lake to take on the Jazz. Its a short road trip. Only one game. The next night we play in Portland again vs the Clippers. For those of you who don't have Comcast you will be able to view the game on KGW channel 8. It will also be broadcast nationally on TNT Gametime is 7:30 Pacific time. The Jazz beat us in our last trip to Salt Lake on November 5. Hopefully this time the outcome will be different. Tuesday nights loss at home to Orlando bugged me. And I'm hoping it bugged our team too,\... enough to bring the something extra that it always takes if you're planning on beating Jerry Sloans team on their home floor. Speaking of Sloan. This week he won his thousandth game as a head coach. IMHO he's one of the best coaches of all time. Always has his team ready to play. Always makes the most of what he has. The Utah Jazz have been beset with injury problems this season. First, to allstar point guard Deron Williams and most recently to Olympian Carlos Boozer, who anchors down the power forward position for the Jazz. Utah brings a 14-9 record into the game (9-3 at home), and they are right behind Portland (15-8) and Denver (15-7) in the Northwest Division. It will be a tough game, but I just don't see Portland dropping two in a row at this point. And I don't think they'll repeat the mistakes that cost them the Orlando game. I'm picking the Blazers by three. Projected starters Portland Trailblazers Steve Blake -PG Brandon Roy-SG Nic Batum-SF LaMarcus Aldridge-PF Greg Oden-Center Projected starters Utah Jazz Deron Williams-PG Ronnie Brewer-SG CJ Miles SF Paul Milsap-PF Mehmet Okur-Center NOTE: Paul Milsap has been starting at Power Forward for the injured Carlos Boozer. He has been out for about ten games due to a strained tendon in his upper left quadriceps. He's indicated he may wear some kind of brace upon his return, and had hoped that his first game back would be Thursday nights game against the Trailblazers. The Jazz announced Wednesday he'll probably won't be ready to play against Portland. As always there will be pregame, gametime, and postgame discussion of the game in the gameday forum http://www.clubblazers.com/blazers-gameday/dec-utah-jazz-t1340.html Be sure to catch the video recap and hdtv highlights of the game at http://www.clubblazers.com/blazer-game-highlights/
For those who haven't seen him play, watch out for Paul Millsap. He's currently on a nine game double double streak, and is a big part of the reason Boozer wont be in a Jazz uniform next season. His offense isn't as good as Boozer, but he's a better defender (not that that's much of an achievement) who shoots at a high clip and rebounds at a similar level. Jazz 98 Blazers 93
Millsap is great. One of the best hustle PF in the game - and while he is not the scorer that Boozer is - from the little I did see of him - his D seems to be better.
