Trail Blazers even series
Denver dominates on the boards, but Portland gets even behind McCollum.
CJ McCollum picks up the slack for cold Damian Lillard in a 97-90 victory over the Nuggets.
DENVER — CJ McCollum scored 20 points, picking up the slack with backcourt mate Damian Lillard struggling, and the Portland Trail Blazers turned back the Denver Nuggets 97-90 on Wednesday night to even their playoff series at 1-1.
The Trail Blazers led by 15 at halftime, 17 in the third quarter and 14 to start the fourth, but the Nuggets pulled to 95-90 in the final minute thanks to an astonishing 14 offensive rebounds and a 19-9 run before Rodney Hood’s two free throws with 17 seconds left iced it.
“The good news is they had all of those offensive rebounds but they didn’t convert a lot,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said. “They were eight for 24 on secondchance points. We were fortunate we came away not hurt as badly as we could have been on the offensive boards.
“[Nikola] Jokic and [Paul] Millsap were just playing volleyball with it. They’re both excellent offensive rebounders. They’re a top-three offensive rebounding team anyway and we’ve got to make sure they don’t have those opportunities in Game 3.”
Lillard had only 14 points, going five of 17 from the floor and one of seven from threepoint range, 48 hours after scoring 39 in the series opener.
Jokic had 16 points and 14 rebounds but got off to a slow start and wasn’t nearly the take-control force he was in Game 1, when he scored 37 points.
With Jokic taking one shot in the first quarter and scoring six points in the first half, the Nuggets trailed 5035 at halftime after the franchise’s worst quarter ever at home in the playoffs, one in which they made only five of 23 shots and missed all 10 of their three-pointers.
To top it off, they lost spark plug forward Torrey Craig, whose nose was bloodied after he was knocked down early in the second quarter.
Moments after Craig hobbled off, leaving a trail of blood, Maurice Harkless rolled his right ankle and also left the game. Harkless didn’t return but Craig came back in the second half.