Saturday answers whether Will Hardy closes with Darryn Peterson. He didn't on Wednesday. With 2:06 left in regulation and the Spurs up 105-100, Hardy sent Josh Green in for the rookie, and Peterson never came back. Keyonte George tied it with a layup at 0:41, then San Antonio won overtime 12-6 and the game 117-111 (our recap). Now Portland brings the league's No. 3 scoring offense to the Delta Center for a 1 p.m. Halloween matinee. If it's close late, we want Peterson on the floor for every second of the finish.
Wednesday was the odd one out
By our count of NBA.com's play-by-play, four of our five games have been within five points with five minutes to play. In the first three of them, the 120-119 win over New Orleans, the Lakers loss and Monday's Grizzlies loss, Peterson played all five of those minutes. Against the Spurs, down 101-100 at the five-minute mark, he played 2:54 of them and none of overtime. That's 2:54 out of the last 10 minutes of a game that was tied at the end of regulation.
He'd earned more. He finished with 18 points, his career high, and went 7-of-7 at the line, and his 25:56 were the fewest minutes he's played this season. As of Friday evening we hadn't found Hardy explaining it, in Jazz.com's takeaways or anywhere else, so we won't guess at his reasons. The overtime box is bad enough without him: we shot 2-of-7, both makes Brice Sensabaugh threes, and turned it over four times, once each by Jaxson Hayes and Isaiah Collier and twice by George.
The rookie doesn't give it away
Hardy named the problem himself after the game. "Turnovers are a huge issue, we need to clean up our ball security," he said, per Eric Spyropoulos's takeaways on Jazz.com. The NBA.com box scores have us at 85 turnovers in five games, 17.0 a game, which ESPN ranks 24th in the league. We've had 17 or more in four of the five. Peterson has 4 of those 85, in 143 minutes. Collier had 6 on Wednesday alone, and George had 5.
Portland is a good team to fix it against. Spyropoulos's preview says the Blazers rank 25th in opponent turnover percentage and rely on drop coverage in the pick-and-roll. A big man sitting back in the paint gives up the floater and the short pull-up, and that's where Peterson lives. Jazz.com's mailbag has 49 percent of his shots coming from the floater zone, outside four feet but inside the free-throw line. Put the ball in his hands late and he gets the shot Portland's scheme is built to allow, without the turnovers we've been handing out.
Portland's threes, minus Morant
The Blazers are 3-1 and score 122.8 points a game, third in the league per ESPN, on 45.0 three-point attempts a game, the most in the league. Damian Lillard has taken 37 of those threes in four games and made 13. On Thursday the shots stopped falling: 12-of-49 from deep in a 124-103 home loss to Memphis. Against a team that lives at that volume, every possession we give away is one more trip for them to fire.
They lost Ja Morant that night too. The Blazers said Friday that imaging showed a grade-two left hamstring strain and that he'll be re-evaluated in four weeks. We hope he's back soon. Portland had started the same five in all four games (Lillard, Morant, Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara and Donovan Clingan), and when we checked Friday evening we hadn't seen who takes Morant's spot. The NBA's official injury report as of 8 p.m. ET Friday has Shaedon Sharpe out (right meniscus surgery), with Robert Williams III (left knee) and Chris Youngblood (left ankle soreness) questionable. Lillard isn't on it.
For us, the same report lists Lauri Markkanen as questionable with his sprained right wrist. Jaren Jackson Jr. (torn right MCL) and Jusuf Nurkić (right foot) are out, along with two-way players Trey Alexander, Kobe Bufkin and Harrison Ingram. Hayes, who played 37:24 on Wednesday, isn't listed.
Tip is 1 p.m. MDT at the Delta Center, on KJZZ and KSL 97.5 FM (schedule). It ends a five-game homestand we've gone 1-3 on, and Monday a four-game road trip starts in San Antonio. We're 1-4 and 13th in the West. Portland is fifth, won all four meetings last season, and gets a 61.2 percent chance from ESPN's Matchup Predictor.
Our pick
Jazz 118, Blazers 114. Without Morant, Portland leans even harder on Lillard and the three, and we've been within five points with five minutes left in four of five games. If Markkanen plays, we like it more. We think this one comes down to the last five minutes again, and this time Hardy finishes it with George, Ace Bailey and Peterson together.
The number we'll check in the recap is Peterson's time in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter and any overtime. If it's within five at the five-minute mark, we want all of it. Wednesday he played 2:54 of 10:00. If the game isn't close, we'll grade the turnovers instead, and anything under 15 is a win for Hardy.
What would make us wrong: Portland making threes the way it did at the Lakers on Tuesday, 18-of-36, or another 19-turnover night from us. Or Hardy sitting the rookie down the stretch again, in which case we'll be back here on Sunday asking the same question.
Take note.
Sources: NBA.com box score and play-by-play for the Spurs game (Peterson's minutes, his exit at 2:06, the 2:54 in the last five minutes, the overtime score, shooting and turnovers; our count); NBA.com box scores and play-by-play for the Grizzlies, Pelicans, Lakers and Grizzlies games (scores with five minutes left, Peterson's minutes, points and turnovers, team turnovers); NBA.com box scores for Portland's games against the Suns, Kings, Lakers and Grizzlies (starters, points, threes, Lillard's attempts); ESPN's team stats for the league ranks (Portland's scoring and three-point attempts, our turnovers) and its game page for the Matchup Predictor; Eric Spyropoulos on Jazz.com for the Spurs takeaways (Hardy's quote), the Blazers preview (opponent turnover rank, drop coverage, last season's series) and the mailbag (Peterson's shot zones); the Trail Blazers' Morant injury update; the official NBA injury report of 8 p.m. ET Friday, read at 6:10 p.m. MDT; NBA.com for the schedule, records, tip time and broadcasts.