DENVER -- The Trail Blazers have a long way to go to reach their ultimate goal in the postseason, but they got their journey off to an excellent start Saturday night in Denver.
Six Trail Blazers scored in double figures and both Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic finished with double-doubles to lift Portland to a 123-109 victory versus the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of the three-six Western Conference first round series in front of a crowd of 7,732 Saturday night at Ball Arena.
“It’s good to get that first win in a playoff series,” said Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts. “To me, when you win the odd numbered games -- one, three, five, seven -- those are key, so getting Game 1, it’s a great start for us.”
The six-seed Trail Blazers now lead the three-seed Nuggets 1-0 in the best-of-seven series, which resumes Monday night in Denver.
With the Nuggets playing without Jamal Murray, Will Barton and P.J. Dozier, the Trail Blazers’ game plan of making someone other than MVP finalist Nikola Jokic beat them became fairly evident early on in Game 1. While Jokic was all but unstoppable in the first half, the Trail Blazers were willing to live with the results as long as they were able to keep the likes of Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon in check.
However, with the Nuggets dominating the offensive glass -- they had nine offensive rebounds in the first half and 15 second-chance points -- and Portland’s three-guard lineup going 1-of-5 from three in their first shift, the approach wasn’t all that effective in the early going.
“Second chance points, that was a big part what we do usually against them,” said Jusuf Nurkic. “They came locked in and they came ready. Other than that, we wanted Nikola (Jokic) to try and be a scorer and be mainly a scorer rather than a passer.”
But after some early struggles, Carmelo Anthony, who received a smattering of boos whenever he would tough the ball versus his former team, and Anfernee Simons entered the game with a little less than five minutes to play in the first quarter and almost immediately changed the game on their own by outscoring the Nuggets 18-6 on their own.
"I just wanted to be locked in mentally, make sure everything was good in the mental standpoint,” said Simons. “When I was out there, I was comfortable.”
Behind the effort from the bench, Portland took a 35-30 lead into the second quarter, and maybe more importantly, no Denver player besides Jokic scored more than six points in the quarter.
Portland would have their only offensive lull of the game in the second quarter -- Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Norman Powell combined to go just 5-of-18 from the field in the second -- which allowed the Nuggets to outscore the Blazers by eight to take 61-58 lead into the intermission.
Denver scored eight quick points to start the second half, which included back-to-back threes from Aaron Gordon and Facundo Campazzo, to take their largest lead at 69-60 with 9:44 to play in the third. Had the non-Jokic Nuggets continued to score at that clip, it would have been hard to figure how Portland could come away with a win and wrestle away home-court advantage in Game 1.
But after a first half in which he looked to get his teammates involved, Lillard looked for his own in the third quarter, and with great success. He sparked a 12-2 run that tied the game at 73-73 with just under seven minutes to play and would can a 28-footer to close out the quarter on an 8-0 run and take a 96-86 lead into the fourth.
“Tonight, I was into it,” said Lillard. “All that matters is win the game, and for the last week, this is all I’ve been thinking about. We had a whole week to prepare for this and get ready for Game 1, we prepared hard. I wanted to win the game, and I want to win this series.”
Portland would have to withstand one more rally, this one coming with Jokic on the bench. After being a non-factor for most of the first three quarters, Michael Porter Jr. scored 10 points in the first four minutes of the fourth. And with Lillard on the bench, the Nuggets cut the lead to four with 8:14 to play. CJ McCollum and Simons combining for the next five points, along with Lillard re-entering the game, helped calm some nerves on Portland’s bench. And then an 11-0 run from the 5:01 to 3:20 marks of the fourth gave the Trail Blazers a 15-point lead and plenty of cushion to coast to the Game 1 win.
“Anytime you start a series on the road, you’re going into it thinking you know we need to at least win one,” said Lillard. “Heading back home, we’ve got to have one of those first two. It’s a major statement to be able to get the first one. We came in saying we were going to just play tough and try to take it a game at a time. We came out and we jumped out to a lead. Getting the first one is really important. It’s the first of four and it’s only going to get harder from here, but I think starting out with a win on the road was great for us.
Lillard led Portland with 34 points on 10-of-25 shooting from the field and 9-of-9 shooting from three, 13 assists and two rebounds in just under 40 minutes. CJ McCollum finished with 21 points, six rebounds and three assists and Jusuf Nurkic put up 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting, 12 rebounds, four assists and a steal in nearly 33 minutes.
Anthony scored 12 of his 18 points in the first quarter in his first win in Denver as a visitor. Simons went 5-of-6 from the field and 4-of-5 from three for 14 points and Norman Powell added 10 points and four rebounds off the bench.
Jokic also had 34 points and 16 rebounds, though he finished with just one assist, well below his season average. Porter Jr. finished with 25 points, though he went 1-of-10 from three in 37 minutes. Gordon had 16 points and Monte Morris was the only other Denver player to score in double figures with 10.
Now that they’ve claimed home court, the Trail Blazers will try to win another in Denver in Game 2 Monday night before the series shifts back to Portland for Games 3 and 4. Tipoff for Monday’s game is scheduled for 7 p.m.