The Trailblazers took down the second place Denver Nuggets on Sunday night, an important win that brings them very close to securing home court advantage in the playoffs. In a somewhat surprising move, the Nuggets opted to rest their top three players, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Paul Milsap. Still, Denver is a deep team and even without their “big three” they stood to give Portland trouble. Luckily CJ McCollum returned to action for the Blazers after a 10 game absence due to a knee injury and he provided a much needed boost. Damian Lillard and Al Farouq Aminu both had big games to help the Blazers win a good one, 115-108.
The crowd gave a big cheer when McCollum’s name was announced in the starting line-up. After Friday’s tough loss to this same Nugget team, old CJ was a welcome sight. He hit the ground running with 9 points in the first quarter, much to the delight of the fans. But the night really belonged to Al Farouq Aminu. The usually quiet power forward scored a season high 23 points and along with 11 rebounds, recorded his first ever “20-10” game. You could tell things were going to fall Aminu’s way early on after plays like this one:
Doesn’t matter how, just matters that you get ’em. pic.twitter.com/lnQIJdLfDP
— Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) April 8, 2019
Portland was up 49-60 at halftime and the game appeared well in hand, but the Nuggets still had some fight left in them. First let’s check out some fan action from the hallways during the break.
It was a early start time on Sunday so there were more families with kids than usual. This little one checked out his first game with proper ear wear:
This dad and daughter rocked matching shirts:
Father/Son Blazerdom:
And these dudes were like, “Um, why are there so many kids here?”:
Anyway, the second half saw the Nuggets come back strong and even take the lead midway through the fourth quarter. Denver was up by as much as seven points with just a few minutes to go. Portland kept their wits about them though and righted the ship. The weak offensive attack which had plagued them in the previous game was no where to be seen. It was nice to have Seth Curry back in the line-up after a one game absence, as well as the aforementioned McCollum. Together they provided nice options for Lillard, who tends to be the focus of opposing defenses when the Blazers need big buckets.
Portland took back the lead with a three minutes remaining and kept up the pressure. Aminu and Kanter crashed the boards and Denver couldn’t keep up down the stretch. This win meant a lot more for the Blazers than the Nuggets, who seem likely to hold second place regardless. In an extra sweet stroke of luck, the Utah Jazz were upset by the Lakers on the same night, making it extremely difficult for Utah to catch Portland for 4th seed in the west.
With two games remaining in the regular season the Blazers now enter a somewhat complicated matrix which I will not attempt to explain fully, except to say the most likely outcome is that they remain in 4th place and play the Utah Jazz in the first round of the playoffs with home court advantage. There exists a reasonable chance the Blazers might finish in 3rd place and end up playing the dreaded OKC Thunder, but that depends mostly on the outcome of the Rockets/OKC game on Tuesday night. If you want to peruse all the possible scenarios, I suggest you check out this link.
The Blazers now head to Los Angeles to take on the Lakers, a sagging team which did the Blazers a big favor by beating the Utah Jazz on this night. Hopefully the Lakers won’t be feeling equally feisty when they meet Portland on Tuesday because a win in LA would secure the Blazers that all-important home court advantage as well as leave the door open for taking the 3rd seed. It’s going down to the wire Rip City!