The Denver Nuggets fell behind very early in their game against the Portland Trail Blazers and then turned on the jets and never looked back. Nikola Jokic had a dominant performance, Jamal Murray was a key catalyst to building a big lead and after a huge run in the first quarter the Blazers had no answers. The lead kept growing as the game went on and eventually it worked itself into one of the biggest blowouts in Denver Nuggets history. They win huge, 157-103.
The Blazers got out in front quickly to start the game. They were fueled by a pair of Donovan Clingan threes. Denver fought back and eventually took the lead on a Cameron Johnson fast break dunk. It ended up being a 13-0 run before the Blazers finally got a bucket. The Nuggets stayed red hot, Jokic in particular but everyone was getting a piece of the action. With the bench checking in Denver pushed the lead to double digits. The back half of the quarter was still mostly Jokic. Tim Hardaway Jr. got a pair of threes (one off a pair of pretty passes from Jokic and Christian Braun) to keep Denver’s lead around a dozen with a couple minutes to go in the quarter. The Nuggets offense cooled off, but they kept playing strong defense and didn’t let Portland cut into the lead. After one Denver led 41-27.
The offense was not as crisp opening the second quarter with Jokic on the bench but Hardaway kept the Nuggets in front by double digits. Portland was struggling to score as was Denver but the Nuggets kept getting enough offense to slowly keep pushing the lead up. Murray got some buckets and Jokic came back in to re-ignite the offense. After he pulled off a silly and-1 the Nuggets were up twenty and looking like they were well on their way to a blowout heading into the half. Murray continued to be hot and started knocking down every three he put up. The lead kept pushing as the quarter closed out, Murray got fouled on a three point shot with 0.4 seconds left and sunk all three…and the Nuggets went to the locker room leading 82-53.
They picked right back up where they left off in the first half to open the third quarter, on offense at least, and quickly got over ninety points and a lead over thirty. Denver was making it look easy, Jokic had a pretty transition pass to Julian Strawther to get him a layup and the Nuggets a thirty-three point lead. Things slowed down after that while the Blazers remained unable to make any headway on Denver’s lead. The Nuggets turned it back up, continued to hit a ridiculous amount of threes and grew their lead. Before you knew it, they were up by forty. The refs ground the game to a halt after that and the quarter wrapped up with a lot of free throws. After three the Nuggets were up 125-85.
Predictably the Nuggets started the fourth quarter resting on the bench and knowing that only a major collapse would require their services again tonight. Jonas Valanciunas led the bench in the early going in the fourth quarter. Hardaway also continued his solid night shooting and it only took about four minutes before the deep bench started checking in. That included Denver’s newest addition, KJ Simpson. He had some solid moments while Strawther had his floater working. On the Blazers side there was also some big minutes for rookie Yeng Hensen, though he struggled a bit, particularly from the free throw line. DaRon Holmes also had a couple of dunks and was looking good running in transition. Simpson was probably the most impressive of any of the players on the court in the fourth though. Kudos to the Nuggets front office for bringing in what looks like another solid two-way player. Eventually it wrapped up mercifully in what will surely be the biggest blowout of the season. Nuggets give the Blazers a good old fashioned wood shedding and win 157-103.
