"It's kind of repetitive," Williams said. "I mean, we just keep starting games soft -- and it can't happen on the road. Teams get confidence like that, it's tough to stop them."

Williams had a game-high 35 points in 38 minutes despite being ill beforehand.

"Lost my lunch," he said. "It took me a while to get my energy, (because) I didn't have anything in my stomach. I had to come out in that first quarter, because I thought was going to pass out after that."

With Utah getting not nearly enough from the rest of its starters -- and even less from a seven-man bench that produced just 19 points -- Portland was easily able to improve to 29-17.

Utah fell to 26-22 after playing its 36th straight game without Jazz All-Star power forward Carlos Boozer (arthroscopic knee surgery) and its sixth in a row without sixth man Andrei Kirilenko (ankle surgery).

The Jazz also are now just 1-11 in the back half of back-to-back sets, dampening a home victory over Oklahoma City on Friday night that snapped their four-game losing streak.

And it's largely because of yet another rough beginning.

"We still had the same problem we've had here of late of being able to play in the first quarter," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said.

The Blazers led 33-26 after an opening quarter that kicked off with three straight Jazz turnovers, and by as many as 14 points in the second.

Yet it was what happened at the start of the third that had Sloan even more miffed.

With Williams scoring 18 of Utah's points before in the break on 6-of-7 field shooting that included 2-of-3 from 3-point range, the Jazz did manage to go into the second half down just five at 52-47.

The Trail Blazers were hot and Utah couldn't do a thing to cool 'em at the start of the third, though, and it wasn't long before Portland's advantage was back to double digits.

"It didn't make any difference what we were trying to do," said Sloan, who watched the Blazers score on eight straight possessions early in the third. "They scored (each time). They just took advantage of us, played smart Basketball and it looked like we were just out there to exchange baskets with them."

"We came out soft again in that third quarter. You know, (Sloan) is right," Williams added. "We tried everything we could pick-and-roll wise in our book. You know, we tried to trap. We tried showing hard, we tried showing a little bit, we tried going under. We tried zone. ... They pretty much did what they wanted to do."

With style, too.

Frenchman Nicolas Batum's 3-pointer late in the quarter put Portland up by 20, and if that wasn't enough to do in the Jazz the antics of two Spaniards operating on the same page was.

Replacement-starter point guard Sergio Rodriguez zipped a nifty pass to countryman Rudy Fernandez for an alley-oop lay-in with his back facing the basket that just beat the end-of-the-third-quarter buzzer, and Portland's first basket of the fourth was an alley-oop lob from Rodriguez to Fernandez for a dunk that made it 92-75 Blazers.

"The bottom line is we've got to stop being so soft as a team," Williams said. "You know, we come out soft as a team. We let teams push (us) around. We don't push back, fight back. We just lay down like this."

NOTES: Boozer didn't make the trip, but -- after making a third follow-up visit to his orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles late last week -- he's been cleared to continue his rehab program. ... Portland was without would-be starting point Steve Blake, who has missed seven of the Blazers' last eight games with an injured right shoulder. ... The Jazz play their third game in four nights when Charlotte visits EnergySolutions Arena on Monday. E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com