The Portland Trail Blazers came close to beating Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night, riding 40 points from Damian Lillard to a near-win. But a huge three from Jamal Murray ended up robbing Portland of their victory celebration, putting Denver ahead 121-120 when the final horn sounded. Nikola Jokic was as impressive as Lillard with 33 points, 10 rebounds, and 9 assists.
If you missed the game, you missed a great one. You can read our quarter-by-quarter recap here. After that, here are other observations from the evening.
Fast and Furious
The Nuggets announced from the get-go that they planned to beat Portland’s defense by not letting it set up.