PORTLAND-The band was back together for the Trail Blazers Tuesday night at the Moda Center as Robin Lopez made his return to the lineup.
And the tunes were sweet once again.
Lopez finished with 11 points, six rebounds and two blocks in 25 minutes of play in a 103-102 win over the Utah Jazz. Damian Lillard led the Blazers with 25 points, four rebounds and six assists.
But Lopez’s impact on the Blazers cannot be quantified in his box score line. “It all connects,” head coach Terry Stotts has said before.
And on the second play, a vital connection for the Blazers was back in the form of Lopez’s pick-and-roll pairing with Nicolas Batum, in the midst of his worst pro season.
Batum fed Lopez for an dunk and on his way to a near triple-double of 10 points, six assists and eight rebounds.
“RoLo is back,” Batum said when asked about his night. “That’s what it was the first play. Batman and Robin. We’re back. Huge difference for me personally. And we miss him. See the difference.”
“It was what we need from Nic,” Stotts said.
Lillard’s attacked the paint with ferocity, doing all of his damage offensively without hitting a 3-pointer. His 25 on Tuesday were the most he’s ever had in his career without making a long-range shot.
The Blazers were the league’s worst rebounding team in the league over the previous 10 games. With Lopez back in the line-up they out rebounded the team with the league’s 2nd best rebound rate 45-41.
And while the good vibes of Lopez’s return and a hot start for LaMarcus Aldridge got the Blazers off to a good start, the Jazz led at halftime, 47-44.
With Utah coming off a win against the Western Conference leading Warriors in their last game, they weren’t going to go away easily.
The Jazz bench brought brought a scoring punch with point guard Trey Burke scoring 10. The Blazers, by comparison, only had five bench points in the first half.
But more important to the complexion of the game than Burke’s scoring was the impact of Utah’s back-up center Rudy Gobert.
Gobert made the Blazers second and third guess almost everything they did offensively. And his play, specifically in one-on-one situations against Aldridge, earned him the start in the 2nd half for Utah.
He guarded Aldridge one-on-one and denied him the ball. He made life tougher on Aldridge than almost any defender in the league can and Aldridge scored only eight of his 22 points in the final three quarters.
The Blazers started the third quarter with aggression. They were tenacious on the defensive end and it helped the quickly wrestle the lead and push it to as high as 11.
But the Jazz would not go away, led by Gordon Hayward’s game-high 27 points, and the Blazers led by two heading into the fourth quarter.
Gobert, a defining presence in the game, did not come out unscathed, joining a long line of big men who’ve been dunked on by Damian Lillard.
In the fourth quarter Lillard unleashed a right-handed tomahawk with 7:01 left in the fourth to give Portland an 84-83 lead which sent the Moda Center into a tizzy.
“I crossed over, (Utah’s Elijah Millsap) reached and I just kept going,” Lillard said. “Rudy was kinda watching his man a little bit so when he turned his head I was going full speed. And the only way was it was going to be a foul or a block so I knew I had to go strong to the rim.”
Everything, for the Blazers with Lopez back, is back where it should be.
“Everybody is back to what they’re accustomed, where they’ve been playing for so long,” Matthews said. “He just gives us something that we don’t have.”
