Trail Blazers at Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets had some trouble guarding a big man in their season opener but did well enough against the guards to come out with the win. The Nuggets will try to keep the defensive pressure on the perimeter when they host Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday.
Denver allowed New Orleans forward Anthony Davis to go off for 50 points and 16 rebounds on Wednesday but still managed to post a 69-42 rebounding advantage in a 107-102 triumph at the Pelicans. "When you play against a great player, you have a problem that you have to answer," Nuggets coach Mike Malone told reporters. "Are you going to shut him down and create problems elsewhere, or are you going to let him get his and hope nobody else goes off." Denver must answer that same question on Saturday in regards to Lillard, who followed up 39 points in the opener on Tuesday with 29 and 10 rebounds on Thursday. The 29 points weren't quite enough to get the Trail Blazers past the Los Angeles Clippers in a 114-106 setback that evened their record on the young season.
TV: 9 p.m. ET, CSN Northwest (Portland), Altitude (Denver)
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (1-1): Portland had its intensity in midseason form against the Clippers and scuffled a few times with the team it dispatched in the first round of the playoffs last spring. "I thought we answered the call,"Lillard told reporters. "In that situation you could either let somebody come in and punk you or you stand up and you do something about it and I thought in every situation where it was a little bit of physical activity, we stood up to it. That’s what you’re supposed to do." Center Mason Plumlee was in the middle of most of the pushing and shoving but still put up 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting.
ABOUT THE NUGGETS (1-0): Malone decided before the season that he would start Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic in the frontcourt and bring Kenneth Faried off the bench, and the logic of that decision was apparent in the opener. Nurkic delivered 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting and nine rebounds in 26 minutes while Jokic added seven boards and Faried provided energy off the bench with 14 boards in 28 minutes. "We don’t win the game without Kenneth Faried’s energy up-and-down the floor," Malone told reporters. "I thought he was fantastic in that fourth quarter."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Nuggets G Gary Harris (groin) sat out the opener and is questionable for Saturday.
2. Trail Blazers G/F Evan Turner is 3-of-15 from the field in his first two games after joining the team in the offseason.
3. Portland took 11 of the last 12 meetings, including five of six at Denver.