PORTLAND, Ore. — Michael Malone knew the Trail Blazers would come out aggressively in the second half of Friday’s matchup against the Nuggets. That meant shifting Jusuf Nurkic’s defensive assignment to Nikola Jokic.
The Nuggets’ coach was “curious” to see how Jokic would respond against his former teammate, after Nurkic dominated their first two meetings following a trade deadline deal that sent him from Denver to Portland last season.
And Jokic threw an emphatic counterpunch, compiling 27 points, nine rebounds and six assists to propel Denver to a 102-85 victory against its Northwest Division rival at the Moda Center.
“In the past, Nikola had not been as aggressive as he needed to be (against Nurkic),” Malone said. “Tonight, I think he got over a mental block. He went out there and attacked and was so effective all over the floor — scoring, rebounding and playmaking — which is obviously is what makes Nikola the great player that he is.”
Before Friday, Nurkic held the clear advantage over Jokic and his former team. He dropped 33 points and 15 rebounds in a Trail Blazers win over Denver late last season, a loss that all but knocked the Nuggets out of the playoffs. He compiled 17 points and five rebounds in the teams’ first matchup on Nov. 13. Jokic, meanwhile, had scored 10 total points in his previous two games against the Trail Blazers, prompting Malone to insist during Friday’s pregame media availability that Jokic become more assertive against Nurkic.
Friday night, it was Nurkic who totaled a quiet 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting while pulling down just one rebound.
Denver’s game plan helped Jokic get rolling. Malone again paired Jokic with Mason Plumlee in the starting lineup, expecting Nurkic to initially guard Plumlee. That freed Jokic to post up the smaller Al-Farouq Aminu, scoring eight points in the first quarter as part of Denver’s inside attack that got its first 16 buckets in the paint.
Next came the highlight stretch of a highlight outing, when Jokic scored eight consecutive points in the second quarter to squash a 9-2 Trail Blazers run to grab a 1-point advantage. The Denver big man took a nifty top-of-the-key pass from Jamal Murray and finished through contact for an old-fashioned 3-point play. He dove and elevated to dunk over Nurkic, an uncharacteristic display of athleticism that Malone joked should have halted the contest. He connected on a 3-pointer at the top. Later in the period, he sank a one-footed jumper resembling the style of Dirk Nowitzki.
When Jokic picked up his fourth foul early in the third quarter, Malone stressed he was “not close” to temporarily taking him out of the game. Instead, Jokic helped Denver stretch its lead to 19 points when he drilled a right-wing 3 over Nurkic and converted a crafty finish inside. And when the Trail Blazers sliced the Nuggets’ lead to 80-70 early in the final frame, Jokic followed a Wilson Chandler old-fashioned 3-point play with a layup to help kick-start an 11-0 run to put the game away.
“I got open shots in the beginning, and then I just keep going just to score,” the matter-of-fact Jokic said. “I was aggressive … we shared the ball, so the ball will find me.”
Jokic got help from Chandler, who totaled a season-high 21 points and 11 rebounds to notch his second double-double of the season. Gary Harris, who sat out Wednesday’s loss to Minnesota with an elbow contusion, scored 17 points while aggressively attacking the basket. The Nuggets shot 49.4 percent from the floor, after recording a season-low in that category (35.7) in an 82-point outing in their first matchup against Portland’s normally stingy defense.
Portland’s 85 points, meanwhile, was the third-lowest total put up by a Denver opponent this season. The Nuggets collectively defended the pick-and-roll, while Harris’ lockdown perimeter effort limited CJ McCollum, Lillard’s fellow backcourt standout, to 15 points on 7-of-18 shooting, including 1-of-5 from 3-point range.
As Jokic prepared to depart the Moda Center’s visitors’ locker room a board a flight to the Bay Area—the Nuggets wrap a pre-Christmas back-to-back set Saturday at defending champion Golden State — he slipped a compression sleeve over his left ankle, a sign that the injury is still not 100 percent healed.
But Jokic minimized the effects of any lingering pain, emphasizing he’s “just gonna fight through it.” He also downplayed the assumption he felt any extra juice while again facing Nurkic, but did concede “we just want to kind of beat each other.”
Malone, though, believed Jokic’s development took a key step Friday night in Portland.
“Nikola had great poise,” the coach said. “He embraced the challenge. It was just Nikola Jokic continuing to mature in front of our eyes.”
