CJ McCollum treated Tuesday as any other gameday during the regular season.
The 25-year-old guard woke up, got his shots up at the Portland Trail Blazers' Practice Facility, complained about the catered me ("Switching up from the stir fry to the cheeseburgers that I asked for."), got a haircut ("A little taper on the sides."), took a 'decent' nap and had a meal of lamb chops, collard greens, baked beans and a piece of garlic bread before heading to Moda Center for the Blazers' playoff implication-laden showdown with the Denver Nuggets.
"It was just a normal day, except I didn’t have any wine last night," McCollum said.
The Blazers entered Tuesday's contest tied with the Nuggets for the eighth and final playoff seed in the Western Conference, with the opportunity to move a full game ahead and clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker between the two sides with a win. And though McCollum lived his life like any other day, it felt like a postseason atmosphere in Rip City throughout the 48 minutes played between Portland and Denver as McCollum torched the Nuggets for 39 points, with help from Jusuf Nurkić's career-high 33 points and 16 rebounds, to lift the Blazers to a 122-113 victory and into the driver's seat of their playoff destiny.
"It felt like a playoff experience," 21-year-old forward Noah Vonleh, who's posterization of Nuggets center Nikola Jokić sent the 20,003 fans at Moda Center into a frenzy. "We went out there, knew it was gonna be competitive from the jump. The refs weren’t calling too many fouls early on. They were getting away with stuff, we were getting away with stuff. It was a great atmosphere.
Despite a raucous Rip City faithful and the importance of Tuesday's game, the Blazers and head coach Terry Stotts acknowledged that, while intense, everything is ramped up in the postseason.
"I stand firm in that it’s hard to replicate playoff feel in a regular season game, but I do feel like — certainly both teams were motivated, the crowd was into it — so there was the level of play was high. Seldom do I think a regulars season game meets the playoff standard," Stotts explained.
"I felt the urgency from both teams, but it’s hard to say a regular season game has that type of energy because when you get to the playoffs, that’s absolutely it," echoed point guard Damian Lillard. "The value of each possession goes up; the attention to detail goes up. Both teams know that this is it, and I think tonight we understood that it had big playoff implications, what it meant for both teams and it was a great opportunity for us. I agree with Coach Stotts that it was a huge game, huge game."
While Stotts and Lillard may disagree, it certainly felt like the playoffs for fans inside Moda Center. And if Stotts and Lillard are correct, then perhaps Tuesday was just a light appetizer for the postseason to come if the Blazers can complete their mission over the next eight games.