Portland, Oregon has been a house of horrors for the Denver Nuggets in recent years. The Nuggets’ last win in the Rose City? Feb. 27, 2013. Ty Lawson scored 30 points in the victory while Andre Iguodala added 29.
After a 17-point loss in at Moda Center earlier this season, Nikola Jokic put the Nuggets on his back and led Denver to their first win in Portland in their last 10 tries — a 102-85 victory over a Trail Blazers squad that was without All-Star point guard Damian Lillard.
You could tell from tonight’s opening tip that this matchup for Jokic was personal. Of course, Denver was going up against former Nugget Jusuf Nurkic who scored a combined 50 points and 20 rebounds in his two games versus the Nuggets since last February’s trade.
But Jokic played with an edge tonight that you don’t see out of the softspoken Serbian, who scored just six points in the two teams’ first matchup of the year, too often.
He scored 27 points on a clean 11-17 shooting, hit two threes and dominated the matchup against Nurkic who finished with just 10 points and one rebound.
After the Trail Blazers went on an 11-0 run spanning the end of the first quarter and beginning of the second, Denver rattled off a 13-8 run of their own behind eight-straight points from Jokic. Hist most memorable bucket of that stretch was when he took his former teammate off the bounce from the right wing, jabbed Nurkic with an elbow and dunked the ball for just the fifth time this season
“I don’t know how that happened, to be honest,” Jokic said after the game via Altitude TV. “I’ve got to see that again.”
At halftime, the box score read Jokic 18, Portland’s starters 18.
After two straight turnovers to start the third, Denver got out to a 16-8 advantage and never looked back. The Nuggets led by as many as 19 at one point in the third quarter. Portland got to within 10 early in the fourth but a 9-0 Nuggets’ run led Denver to one of their most important wins of the season.
Mason Plumlee only scored eight points to go with five rebounds but controlled the paint on the defensive end of the floor after playing just six minutes against Portland in November. Plumlee also registered four blocks, at least two of which came on Nurkic.
Wilson Chandler turned in one of his better games of the season. The forward has been phenomenal on the defensive end of the floor all season but poured in a season-high 21 points tonight in 43 big minutes. Chandler’s three-point play as Portland closed to within 10 points in the fourth quarter turned the momentum back in Denver’s direction.
In his return from a one-game absence due to a right elbow contusion, Gary Harris scored 17 points, all of which came in the paint. As a team, the Nuggets scored 64 points in the paint tonight.
The Nuggets fly out of Portland late Friday night and head to Oakland where they’ll take on the Warriors on a back-to-back Saturday. Denver moves to 17-15 on the season and collects its sixth win of the season away from Pepsi Center.
