PORTLAND – The Utah Jazz absolutely defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 141-99 at the Moda Center on Friday night, ending a five-game losing streak.

Before we delve into the future implications of this game, let’s do a little housekeeping first.

Lauri Markkanen was late on Friday. Just before taking the court for pregame warmups, Markkanen said he felt a slight tightness in his lower back, similar to what he felt before the Jazz’s game against the Sacramento Kings on Oct. 29.

After that game, Markkanen missed three games due to lower back spasms.

“Just before he went to warm up, I realized that maybe something was going on,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “He wanted to go out and really try to test it and push it and meet with the medical team. Then, after his warm-up and the conversations, we just decided it was best to keep him through tonight.”

Markkanen hopes Friday will give him a better chance of playing Sunday when the team is in Sacramento, the final game of this trip.

The second point of housekeeping is that rookie Kyle Filipowski has been cleared to play. He was sent to the Salt Lake City Stars in Los Angeles on Friday night to play a starting game before returning to the Jazz after missing seven straight games with a right ankle sprain and left lower leg inflammation.

In the Stars’ win over the South Bay Lakers, Filipowski recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Hardy said Filipowski was scheduled to travel to Sacramento to rejoin the Jazz and was expected to play Sunday.

Now to the game of jazz. Honestly, the Trail Blazers are really, really bad. They played without Donovan Clingan and Toumani Camara suffered a foot injury early in Friday’s game, so it’s not like they were at full strength.

Still, they probably shouldn’t be so bad as to be outscored by the Jazz by 42 points. But on a night where the Jazz, even without Markkanen, have control of the ball, are shooting 43% from 3-point land and are constantly running in transition, they are quite capable of beating bad teams.

Aside from that, the Blazers are one of the teams at the bottom of the table (8-15), along with the Jazz (5-17), the New Orleans Pelicans (5-18) and the Washington Wizards (2-18). ), Charlotte Hornets (6-16) and Philadelphia 76ers (6-15).

Make no mistake, Jazz bosses are looking beyond this season and hoping for some luck on NBA lottery night. This means that taking losses is important, and the losses against the other teams at the bottom of the table are even more important because they could come into play should there be a tie-breaker at the end of the season.

Currently, the Jazz are clearly on track to lose more games than the Blazers, but if the Portland team’s performance on Friday is any indication of what’s to come for the rest of this season, then a tiebreaker could make for a better one Positioning in the lottery can be crucial.

From a game-play perspective, there were some things to really be excited about Friday night like Keyonte George’s ball pressure and the overall defensive performance, with the Jazz only having 14 turnovers and Walker Kessler finishing with an impressive 13 points, 17 rebounds and five blocks.

Those are the things you like to see as these players develop, but if you’re someone who covets a player like Cooper Flagg, you just wish performances like that had come in the wake of a loss that was an absolute blast against a lottery pick .