Utah Jazz vs Portland Trail Blazers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 12/26/24

The Utah Jazz will travel Thursday to Portland to take on the Trail Blazers in a contest between the two teams currently at the bottom of the Northwest division. This will be the second time these two teams went head-to-head. They last faced each other on December 6, 2024. The Jazz blew out the Trail Blazers in Portland 141-99 behind 22 points from Johnny Juzang and 20 points from John Collins. The Jazz shot 55% from the field in that game in their best offensive showing of the year. This performance has been an outlier for how well the Jazz have performed offensively this year. They rank in the bottom half of the NBA in points per game and field goal percentage. John Collins is considered a gametime decision for this game, but the Jazz still have Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton to lead their offense in this game. Both Markkanen and Sexton are averaging 17 or more points per game. The Jazz have also recently welcomed back their sixth man, Jordan Clarkson, from injury. His return has helped Utah win 2 of their last 3 games.

Portland’s head coach Chauncey Billups will need to head into this game with a different game plan to slow down Utah compared to their previous game. Billups coaching record in 3 seasons with Portland is 81-165 amid their rebuild. The Trailblazers are led by a pair of talented guards, Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons. Both Sharpe and Simons average 17.4 points per game. DeAndre Ayton will be tasked with slowing down Utah’s bigs. In their previous game, Ayton was played off the floor only totaling 6 points in 17 minutes played. The strength of Utah is their front court, and I believe we will see another dominating effort from them against Portland. Utah is starting to get some of their players back from injury and have played well in recent contests. I know it has been only one game, but it sure looked like Utah had Portland figured out. It’s at least enough for me to side with Utah to go into Portland and pick up a victory.

Jazz +125 available at the time of publishing. Playable at that number.