Portland Trail Blazers: Takeaways from game one against the Denver Nuggets

3. Jusuf Nurkic is doing just fine against Nikola Jokic

No, I’m not stupid. Or blind. Or Jusuf Nurkic‘s number one fan. Nikola Jokic finished with 34 points and at times, it looked incredibly easy. Whether it was Nurkic or Kanter on him, the Joker made them look like laughingstocks with his baby hook shots, post turn-around jumpers, and rainbow 3-pointers.

If you just look a little bit to the side of the scoring column though, you’ll notice that the likely-MVP only registered one assist. The Blazers trusted Nurkic to check his fellow European big man and former teammate one-on-one. While Jokic took advantage of the island he was left on, the other Blazer defenders were able to ensure that he wouldn’t find wide open teammates on the perimeter or cutting to the cup. In the end, the Joker was held to seven less assists than his season average.

Even though Jokic made it look easy, he had to work for every point he scored over the Bosnian Beast. As Denver’s star center seemed to sputter down the stretch, Nurkic found his offense as the game wore on. Taking advantage of Jokic’s fatigue, Nurk wound up with 16 points, 12 boards, and 5 assists, hitting 70 percent of his looks.

After Jamal Murray went down, the Nuggets averaged an electrifying 115 points per game. In game one against the Blazers, they managed 109. Not bad for a notoriously bad defensive team, huh? Portland needs to continue to let Nurk check Jokic one-on-one until the Joker makes them pay in the win column.