Portland Trail Blazers: Nurkic’s best games against Portland’s upcoming opponents
By Ryan Gaskin
From sending Denver packing for the summer to stuffing the stat-sheet against Philly, Portland Trail Blazers’ big Jusuf Nurkic has had some successful nights against their upcoming opponents.
Inconsistent. Injury-riddled. Following an underwhelming season, the Portland Trail Blazers can count themselves lucky to be still be in with a shot of the playoffs at this point.
However, when they return for the final 8 games of the regular season, the Blazers will look a lot different, and Jusuf Nurkic stands at the center of that.
The ‘Bosnian Beast’ is fit and ready to go, and will provide a much-needed boost in Portland’s bid to make this years postseason. The Portland Trail Blazers are currently sitting 3.5 games behind the Memphis Grizzlies, and will have 8 games to try and change that (or at least close the gap).
Their schedule will likely look something like this:
- Memphis Grizzlies
- Houston Rockets
- Dallas Mavericks
- Boston Celtics
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Brooklyn Nets
- Utah Jazz
- Denver Nuggets
No doubt about it, that’s a difficult-looking set of games. But Nurkic, despite not playing an NBA game for over a year, does have some experience against these teams, and has torched several of them in his time as a Blazer.
Nurkic will give Portland a dangerous X-factor when July rolls around, so I’ve put together some of the Bosnian’s best performances against some of these playoff teams.