{"id":1309911,"date":"2019-05-01T22:44:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T04:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/mccollum-leads-blazers-past-cold-nuggets-97-90\/"},"modified":"2019-05-01T22:44:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T04:44:00","slug":"cj-mccollum-leads-blazers-past-cold-nuggets-97-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/cj-mccollum-leads-blazers-past-cold-nuggets-97-90\/","title":{"rendered":"CJ McCollum leads Blazers past cold Nuggets, 97-90"},"content":{"rendered":"
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, left, fights for control of a rebound with Portland Trail Blazers forward Al-Farouq Aminu during the first half of Game 2 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series Wednesday, May 1, 2019, in Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DENVER \u2014 CJ McCollum scored 20 points, picking up the slack with backcourt mate Damian Lillard struggling, and the Portland Trail Blazers turned back the Denver Nuggets 97-90 on Wednesday night to even their playoff series at 1-1.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers led by 15 at halftime, 17 in the third quarter and 14 to start the fourth but the Nuggets pulled to 95-90 in the final minute thanks to an astonishing 14 offensive rebounds and a 19-9 run before Rodney Hood\u2019s two free throws with 17 seconds left iced it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news is they had all of those offensive rebounds but they didn\u2019t convert a lot,\u201d Portland coach Terry Stotts said. \u201cThey were 8 for 24 on second-chance points. We were fortunate we came away not hurt as badly as we could have been on the offensive boards.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Nikola) Jokic and (Paul) Millsap were just playing volleyball with it. They\u2019re both excellent offensive rebounders. They\u2019re a top-three offensive rebounding team anyway and we\u2019ve got to make sure they don\u2019t have those opportunities in Game 3.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lillard added 14 points but was just 5 of 17 from the floor and 1 of 7 from 3-point range, 24 hours after scoring 39 in the series opener. Still, the Blazers seized the home-court advantage with the series shifting to Portland for Game 3 on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Jokic had 16 points and 14 boards but got off to a slow start and wasn\u2019t nearly the take-control force he was in Game 1, when he scored 37 points.<\/p>\n

With Jokic taking \u2014 and missing \u2014 just one shot in the first quarter and scoring six points in the first half, the Nuggets trailed 50-35 at halftime after the franchise\u2019s worst quarter ever at home in the playoffs, one in which they made just 5 of 23 shots and missed all 10 of their 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

Nuggets coach Michael Malone said he admonished his team at halftime, \u201c\u2019if you\u2019re not making shots, maybe attack the basket, maybe get to the foul line, maybe get to the rim.\u2019 And we were getting such open looks. I understand our players shooting the shot. But when you\u2019re not having a night when you\u2019re making a shot consistently, you\u2019ve got to attack the basket, you\u2019ve got to push pressure on the rim. You\u2019ve got to think attack instead of settle. And I thought in that first half we didn\u2019t have that mind-set.\u201d<\/p>\n

To top it off, they lost sparkplug forward Torrey Craig, whose nose was bloodied after he was knocked down and slammed into teammate Monte Morris\u2019 foot early in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

Moments after Craig hobbled off, leaving a trail of blood, Maurice Harkless rolled his right ankle and also left the game. Harkless didn\u2019t return but Craig came back in the second half.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets were booed off the court at the break after missing their final eight shots. Denver\u2019s backcourt was just 5 of 18 in the first half, including 2 of 11 from Jamal Murray, who would miss much of the fourth quarter while trying to loosen up his tight right thigh he hurt in the last series.<\/p>\n

Craig, whose insertion into the starting lineup turned around the Nuggets\u2019 first-round series against San Antonio, returned with a face mask with 3 minutes left in the third quarter. He immediately grabbed a rebound and his 3-pointer with a minute left in the quarter was Denver\u2019s first since 1:11 of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Torrey Craig is the unsung hero of the game,\u201d Malone said. \u201cHe\u2019s got some (guts). He\u2019s got some toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n

SCUFFLE<\/p>\n

Jokic pushed Enes Kanter, who slammed into Craig with 43.5 seconds left on a made free throw. Murray took exception to Kanter staring down the fallen Craig and a scuffle ensued at midcourt. Teammates raced to break them up and the two were assessed a double technical.<\/p>\n

TIP-INS:<\/p>\n

Portland: Starting forwards Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu combined for 10 points in the first quarter after being held to a combined four points in Game 1. \u2026 Lillard, whose 37-foot 3-pointer eliminated the Thunder last week, is just 5 of 19 from long range in this series.<\/p>\n

Denver: The Nuggets missed 23 of 29 3-pointers. \u2026 Will Barton sank two foul shots with 8:19 left in the fourth quarter after an odd sequence in which the Jokic missed a jumper and the Nuggets missed five put-backs.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT:<\/p>\n

Game 3 is Friday night in Portland.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, left, fights for control of a rebound with Portland Trail Blazers forward Al-Farouq Aminu during the first half of Game 2 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series Wednesday, May 1, 2019, in Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)AP | AP DENVER \u2014 CJ McCollum scored 20 points, picking up the slack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1309911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 12:28:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1309911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1309911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1309911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1309911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}