DENVER -- There’s much at stake in the late-season, home-and-home series between the Trail Blazers and Nuggets, which starts Friday night at the Pepsi Center in Denver (tipoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Northwest and ESPN.
With the Nuggets leading the Trail Blazers by two games with four games to play for the two-seed and the top spot in the Northwest Division (though the Nuggets own the tiebreaker) and the Blazers leading the Jazz by the same margin for the four-seed (the Jazz own that tiebreaker as well), the next two games will likely have serious ramifications in the Western Conference playoff table.
So while it’s common for players and coaches to revert to old cliches about every game carrying the same importance, a few were willing to state after Friday morning’s shootaround in Denver that the next two games do, in fact, feel a bit bigger.
“This is a kind of unusual situation this late in the season playing a team that’s 1) in our division and 2) we could possibly play against in the postseason,” said Moe Harkless. “So we’re kind of viewing it like a mini type of playoff series. We’re just got to go out here and use these two games and try to prepare. It’s going to be physical, it’s going to be tough, it’s probably going to be playoff-like atmosphere in here and when we get back home.”
The Blazers have lost five straight games to the Nuggets, which includes the first two games of the season series. Portland lost those two contests, with the most recent taking place in Denver nearly three months ago, by a combined total of four points, so perhaps the series is a bit closer than it looks at first glance. Then again, the Blazers will be without both CJ McCollum (left knee) and Jusuf Nurkic (left leg) and Seth Curry is questionable (left tibia soreness), all of whom played in the first two meetings, which might lead one to downplay the importance of the final two games of the series.
But regardless of who is available, the fact remains that Portland will likely need to win at least one of their next two against the Nuggets to keep their hold on homecourt and will probably need to take both if they still harbor any hopes of moving up into second or third in the West. With those kinds of stakes, there’s no point in pretending Friday’s game is simply one of 82.
“When you’re fighting for the playoffs and different things like that, positioning or whatever the case might be, these games, you go in knowing that they mean a lot,” said Al-Farouq Aminu. “I think there’s no such thing as overemphasizing. I feel like it’s the only game we have today, it’s the only one we can worry about. It’s not overemphasizing, it’s understanding the severity of the situation.”