Man I love late-night West Coast basketball -- just wait for those 11 pm ET Stanford or Utah State or UC Santa Barbara, etc., NCAA plays, coming as early as next week. Update those alerts. Will be waiting this year almost exclusively until right before tip if possible (well, 30 mins). It basically gives me a reason to say, oops, wife gotta bail on some fill in blanks show/movie that probably involves a vampire or a doll. Utah is the flat-out better the team here, in my opinion, and naturally Lauri Markkanen became Bernard King post-Bulls.

Utah has struggled defending point guards to start the year, 27th worst. Jrue Holiday is averaging 17.8 points, 5.5 boards, and 7.8 assists on the season and has gone over this number in all four games thus far. The Jazz also allow the 3rd most assists to point guards and Holiday’s role has changed in Portland with looking to score more while also being the facilitator.

Portland has started off the season well with an early +5 point differential per game. But Utah has been even better in their first 3 games with a +8 point differential. The Jazz are a big team and are dominating the boards by a +13 margin this season. Portland is being outrebounded by 2 per game because they rely mostly on Donovan Clingan to get the boards. We are projecting a +10 rebounding margin for Utah which is why we have Utah winning by 4 points per simulation. The Jazz are also holding Portland to 31% 3pt shooting which is comparable to their 32% 3pt shooting on the road last season (vs 36% at home) and just 30% in their 2 road games this season.

We're still figuring out how Phoenix was able to force OT at Utah on Monday. In the end all was well as the Jazz recovered for a 138-134 win helped greatly by 51 points from F Lauri Markkanen, who's had a blazing start to the season as Utah tries to build a fortress out of the Delta Center. Yet we've also been impressed by the Blazers, who don't look like they're missing suspended HC Chauncey Billups one bit. Portland getting All-Star like production from F Deni Avdija (23.5 ppg), while Jerami Grant (22.5 ppg) looks like Sixth Man of the Year candidate, and vet G Jrue Holiday (17.8 ppg) proving he's still got some petrol in his tank. Play Blazers