Playoffs 2021, Game 5: Portland Trail Blazers (2) @ Denver Nuggets (2) - 9:00PM

[THE J0KER]

Both players who come in Denver from Portland (Barton and Plumlee) never in their career have a decent playoff series, which was one of the reasons I wanted for years both to be traded. But even without that fact, it would be extremely risky to give non-star playar an important role after such a long pause. So better wait for eventual game-1 of 2nd round for Barton comeback date. But what scares me the most about the eventual Barton comeback is the potential use of him from Malone against playing time of clearly better and more effective players, the thing we have seen so many times from coach Malone. Current playing time from the Denver-Portland series are:

40.9 mpg Lillard
40.3 mpg McCollum
38.0 mpg Covington
36.8 mpg Powell
35.0 mpg Jokic
34.7 mpg MPJ
29.5 mpg Gordon

In the 2019 playoff series, Jokic played more minutes than Lillard and clearly outperformed him, which is not the case so far in this series where Jokic playing 6 minutes less than Lillard. With Barton in, no surprise if Malone reduces Jokic/Porter/Gordon minutes it would be suicide.

[Richard Miller]

With Barton in, no surprise if Malone reduces Jokic/Porter/Gordon minutes it would be suicide.

Nah, Denver has Howard playing nearly 20 minutes and Rivers who played almost 50 in the double OT game, if Barton does come back, he'll be either coming from bench or as a starting sg

[skywalker33]

With Barton in, no surprise if Malone reduces Jokic/Porter/Gordon minutes it would be suicide.

No doubt Barton will be used to fortify the guard position, not the forward position....

[U hova]

This Suns series is very winnable but I don't want to watch Facu guard CP3 or Booker lol

Barton needs to be back

[The Rebel]

This Suns series is very winnable but I don't want to watch Facu guard CP3 or Booker lol

Barton needs to be back

I actually think Facu is better off guard CP3 than he was Dame. Paul still struggles against physical players that have the speed to keep up with him, which he always been his biggest weakness.

I actually prefer Rivers defense to Barton, but think we really need Dozier back with the way Booker has played the last couple of games.