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Best of the Season, Part XI: Blazers put emphatic stop to Jazz winning streak

By Matt George Moore

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - FEBRUARY 23: Jusuf Nurkic #27 of the Portland Trail Blazers dunks against the Utah Jazz on February 23, 2018 at vivint.SmartHome Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - FEBRUARY 23: Jusuf Nurkic #27 of the Portland Trail Blazers dunks against the Utah Jazz on February 23, 2018 at vivint.SmartHome Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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In their first game back from the NBA’s All-Star break, the Portland Trail Blazers played one of their best games of the season against the surging Utah Jazz.

The Blazers’ 13-game winning streak started just before the NBA’s All-Star break — against the Golden State Warriors — and recommenced just after with a beautiful 100-81 takedown of the suddenly mighty Utah Jazz.

The Feb. 23 match-up was like two trains barreling down the tracks: one — the Blazers Train — was just starting to pick up steam; the other — the Jazz Train — was about to get derailed, if only momentarily.

Choo-choo!

The Jazz had won 11 games in a row before losing to Portland at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. And their loss to the Blazers was really just a blip on their late-season dominance. After losing at home to Portland, they’d beat the woeful Dallas Mavericks and lose to the decidedly un-woeful Houston Rockets before beginning another winning streak that would stretch to nine games.

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In fact — to stretch this metaphor to its breaking point — both the Jazz Train and the Blazers Train were chugging down the tracks and nearly un-derail-able from mid-January to mid-March. During that stretch, Portland and Utah were two of the best teams in basketball.

Blazers-Jazz

Victory No. 2 in the Trail Blazers’ 13-game streak was one of their most impressive wins of the season.

And since this Blazers-Jazz recap is all about streaks, we should mention that this win was Portland’s first in three tries against the Jazz; they would finish the season series tied at two games apiece. Utah snared win No. 8 of their streak on Feb. 11 against Portland — beating the Trail Blazers 115-96 and ending Portland’s nine-game home winning streak.

Streaks galore, I tell ya!

End of the Line for Jazz Streak

As we wrote in our postgame recap:

"The Blazers (33-26) came out looking like a team that had just returned from vacation. The spring was back in their steps, and they were active on the boards and in the passing lanes; Portland had five steals within the first nine minutes, with Maurice Harkless grabbing four of them on his own. (He would finish with six steals.)"

Other superlatives:

Damian Lillard scored 24 points and also made Rip City history.

CJ McCollum scored 26 points on 11/21 shooting, including 4/7 from three. Jusuf Nurkic was effective (15 points, seven rebounds, three blocks) and Al-Farouq Aminu pitched in with 12 points on 5/6 shooting and eight rebounds.

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The Blazers defense (mostly) stifled rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell (20 points on just 8/20 shooting) and held the Jazz as a whole to just 42 percent from the field.

It was a thorough and inspiring win for Portland — but the best was yet to come.

This was, after all, just the second win of a streak that would continue for almost another month.

More awesome-ness to come. As always, stay tuned to the RCP.