From his All-Star teammate to his All-Star coach, playoff veteran sees plenty of reasons to be confident in the Nuggets’ chances heading into Game 2 of their second-round playoff series against Portland.
His assuredness begins with , the Nuggets’ affable superstar center, who is putting up historic averages of almost 25 points, 12 rebounds, and 9 assists at the start of his postseason career. He’s thwarted double-teams by passing out of pressure and against the Blazers in Game 1 he took advantage of a wounded frontcourt to score 37 points.
But can he handle and defensive coverages an opponent might present?
“I wanna be careful how I handle this question,” said Millsap. “But I don’t want to jinx him or whatever it is, but he’s a basketball player, man. Whatever it is, he’ll figure it out.”
Millsap, who compared Jokic to Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady after the Nuggets’ Game 1 win, had a strong showing against Portland in his own right. Itap safe to assume he was the beneficiary of so much attention on Jokic, and his 19 points exposed another frontcourt mismatch against Blazers forward Al-Farouq Aminu.
Even with Portland’s electric backcourt of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, the Nuggets still have a decided advantage overall. There’s a larger discrepancy between Portland’s interior defenders than there is between Denver’s perimeter ones. and did their best to contain the Blazers’ dynamic guards even if it yielded a combined 55 points.
The other component which had Millsap laughing at Wednesday’s shootaround was the thoroughness of his coach, Michael Malone.
“We go through every play in shootaround,” Millsap said. “Every play in the playbook. He’s definitely big on preparation. I respect it. I respect it so much, man. Being prepared is one of those things, if you know that you’re fully prepared and you go through everything, at the end of the day, you can accept whatever happens.”
Millsap clarified that most of the work means running through their own plays in addition to some of Portland’s sets. “Thatap why I’m confident in our group,” Millsap said. “We’re well prepared.”
As for adjustments for Game 2, Millsap wasn’t nearly as illuminating.
“I can’t tell you the plan,” he joked. “I can say we gotta do better on (defense). Thatap about it.”
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