The Portland Trail Blazers may need a more archetypal sixth man by Doug Patrick

After losing to the Utah Jazz on Friday, the Portland Trail Blazers will get a shot at redemption on Christmas.

The Portland Trail Blazers suffered a historic loss to the Utah Jazz on Friday. They will have a shot at redemption tonight.

The Blazers rotation struggled as a whole Friday night, but Al-Farouq Aminu had a particularly rough outing. He went 1-10 from the field and 1-6 from three-point range.

He will need to play much better tonight for the Blazers to have a chance.

If Aminu shoots the ball well, he may even be the key to defeating the Jazz. The Jazz deploy a traditional frontcourt with Derrick Favors starting at power forward. Aminu could stretch the floor and take Favors out of the paint.

Aminu is capable of having efficient offensive stretches. He carried a field goal percentage of 61.5% and a three-point percentage of 50% during the first five games of December.

Terry Stotts should even experiment with playing Zach Collins at power forward alongside Jusuf Nurkic. Collins and Nurkic are both versatile offensive big men. Nurkic is an exceptional passer for a center, and Collins can knock down the occasional three.

Although the Blazers offense was not sharp during Friday’s game, their porous defense is what led to the game getting out of hand.

The Jazz shot a blistering 51.6% from three and 55.3% from the field overall. Ricky Rubio, who owns a field goal percentage of only 39.8% this season, even went 10-15 from the floor.

Portland’s defense has been a problem all season long, but the Jazz scored at will. Stotts has to make some adjustments heading into tonight and Damian Lillard as the team’s leader has to keep the Blazers energy up on both ends of the floor.

The Blazers are 14-3 all-time in Christmas day games. No matter the outcome, it is great to have Blazer basketball on Christmas.