Playoffs Game 2 Rd 1 Portland vs Denver 7:00pm SNW/TNT

[d-train]

This might not be Blazers night

[monopoman]

I also love that a player can literally follow a ref bitching for over a minute and not get T'ed up

[Moonbeam]

This game is becoming unwatchable. Denver deserves to win at this stage, but yeesh, is this an ugly game.

[monopoman]

We knew they'd come out with energy and a run. I expect more runs throughout the game, this is a must win for them. Key is to weather them, don't panic, stick to the gameplan that works.

More energy? They are doing everything in their power to try to piss off the Blazers players Porter Jr. is a piece of **** that is dirty as ****. Their entire strategy is they can't win in a fair fight so play dirty.

They also have the largest home court advantage in the NBA, since in the USA there is no city that is anywhere close to the elevation of Denver.

The fans could literally not show up and it would still be the biggest natural advantage in all of sports.

I think the elevation advantage is exaggerated. People need to be somewhere for weeks to really acclimatize and see an advantage. NBA teams travel frequently so the Nuggets are not there for weeks at a time except preseason. The Nuggets might be slightly less affected by the altitude but its not like they are immune to it. A sport like football could be different where the Denver team could be at home for weeks. Salt Lake City is also over 4200 ft, about 1000 less than Denver. What would create an advantage is if players or teams trained at high altitude for months before the season like professional runners do. There are also setups you can put in your house to replicate altitude. I remember Gilbert Arenas supposedly slept in a high altitude training tent. So most nba players could do that and get a greater advantage than being in Denver would give.

So you are saying to get the advantage you have to live in Denver and never leave?

Umm okay I don't think that is how it works bro but whatever, they spend far more time in Denver and that should be enough. So if I spend 3 months straight in Denver but then spend a week in Portland I lose all the advantage that high elevation gave me?

[monopoman]

This game is becoming unwatchable. Denver deserves to win at this stage, but yeesh, is this an ugly game.

I mean if this game was called more fairly they would have probably a 9ish point lead at best.

[d-train]

I feel good going into the 4th. We have time to close the lead and have a shooters chance at the finish.

[The Sebastian Express]

I'm not sure what CJ was thinking on that entire sequence.

[Moonbeam]

Pull the starters. No point getting injured here.

[Moonbeam]

I'm not sure what CJ was thinking on that entire sequence.

Lots of boneheaded plays tonight from the Blazers.

[PDXKnight]

yuck

[Moonbeam]

Hopefully the frustration of this loss will light a fire under Portland for Game 3.

[The Sebastian Express]

Hopefully the frustration of this loss will light a fire under Portland for Game 3.

The only things I felt we really did bad were being sloppy with the ball and some bad rotations, especially in the second unit versus Millsap and company. I'm not going to comment on the officiating beyond it was a really.. choppy game, like Lamar Hurd said. I felt it was uneven in the sense not that it favored Denver but it wasn't consistent and that's hard when Dame's getting calls for some stuff then not getting it later on but then suddenly we're back to calling touch fouls. And worse, I think that's harder on the big guys.

If they keep playing Milsap, I'm not sure if we can play Kanter against him as we currently are right now. I would've liked to see more of DJ tonight. I expect the bench to play better at home.

We were just so sloppy with the ball tonight, a lot of passes were turned over without Denver doing any pressure on them. I think we had a good chance if we had tightened it up more. I'm not overly worried yet. We got one, that was big, now we just have to protect home court.

[Case2012]

When the officiating is that bad it's just deflating and sucks the life out of a team, especially on the road. Denver was allowed to be dirty and as physical as they wanted while Portland was getting touch fouls. Both those flagrant fouls were bs. Stotts needs to go. Olshey needs to go. Keep Lillard and that's it.

[d-train]

Nuggets got easy shots at the rim the entire game. We never stopped their penetration and didn't stay between the cutters and the ball.

[Matt800]

It would have been nice if the blazers could have at least kept it close. If the blazers can cut their turnovers down that should go a long ways.

Also Kanter has been a lot worse than he was in 2019 vs DEN. In that series he averaged 12.7 pts, 10.7 rb, 1.9 TO, 44% shooting. This time he has 3 pts, 4.5 rb, 1.5 TO, 41.7% shooting. He's playing about half as many minutes, but clearly he's worse in all those categories.

[skywalker33]

This game is becoming unwatchable. Denver deserves to win at this stage, but yeesh, is this an ugly game.

I mean if this game was called more fairly they would have probably a 9ish point lead at best.

No more so than was fair in game 1, POR had only 19 FT's to the 8 DEN got. Nurk did get at least one ticky tac foul called but what's with the flagrants om Melo and CJ ?? Both games poorly officiated IMO but not like that's the reason for DEN's win tonight just as much as it wasn't in POR's win. Gonna be a long series, I just hope LAL are watching the end of it from their living rooms.

[monopoman]

This game is becoming unwatchable. Denver deserves to win at this stage, but yeesh, is this an ugly game.

I mean if this game was called more fairly they would have probably a 9ish point lead at best.

No more so than was fair in game 1, POR had only 19 FT's to the 8 DEN got. Nurk did get at least one ticky tac foul called but what's with the flagrants om Melo and CJ ?? Both games poorly officiated IMO but not like that's the reason for DEN's win tonight just as much as it wasn't in POR's win. Gonna be a long series, I just hope LAL are watching the end of it from their living rooms.

You also got a bull call where Compazzo flops on the ground and acts like CJ pushed him down. I love when people claim "FT discrepancy" is the only way to judge a game though.

That if one team gets more FT's then there is NO WAY they could ever have been due more calls or had any calls go against them that were bull.

I also think that Denver was allowed to be far more physical and when Portland tries similar stuff out come the whistles.

[DaVoiceMaster]

Good to see Lillard show up. Too bad no one else did. I don't care how well CJ shot, he was a friggin idiot all night long. Powell may need to go back to Toronto! What is with Kanter? That is not the same guy that played 72 games with the Blazers. Melo wasn't into the game at all.

[Moonbeam]

Hopefully the frustration of this loss will light a fire under Portland for Game 3.

The only things I felt we really did bad were being sloppy with the ball and some bad rotations, especially in the second unit versus Millsap and company. I'm not going to comment on the officiating beyond it was a really.. choppy game, like Lamar Hurd said. I felt it was uneven in the sense not that it favored Denver but it wasn't consistent and that's hard when Dame's getting calls for some stuff then not getting it later on but then suddenly we're back to calling touch fouls. And worse, I think that's harder on the big guys.

If they keep playing Milsap, I'm not sure if we can play Kanter against him as we currently are right now. I would've liked to see more of DJ tonight. I expect the bench to play better at home.

We were just so sloppy with the ball tonight, a lot of passes were turned over without Denver doing any pressure on them. I think we had a good chance if we had tightened it up more. I'm not overly worried yet. We got one, that was big, now we just have to protect home court.

Yeah, I think the frustration would mostly stem from how Portland was playing, with poor rotations as you said, but also the boneheaded mistakes (flagrant fouls, Nurk basically taking himself out of the game, the turnover parade). The refereeing had both teams testy. I hope Portland harnesses that frustration and lets loose in Game 3 --- the emotions were pretty high in this game, and teams can use that to their benefit or to their detriment as it's a very fine line.

[monopoman]

Hopefully the frustration of this loss will light a fire under Portland for Game 3.

The only things I felt we really did bad were being sloppy with the ball and some bad rotations, especially in the second unit versus Millsap and company. I'm not going to comment on the officiating beyond it was a really.. choppy game, like Lamar Hurd said. I felt it was uneven in the sense not that it favored Denver but it wasn't consistent and that's hard when Dame's getting calls for some stuff then not getting it later on but then suddenly we're back to calling touch fouls. And worse, I think that's harder on the big guys.

If they keep playing Milsap, I'm not sure if we can play Kanter against him as we currently are right now. I would've liked to see more of DJ tonight. I expect the bench to play better at home.

We were just so sloppy with the ball tonight, a lot of passes were turned over without Denver doing any pressure on them. I think we had a good chance if we had tightened it up more. I'm not overly worried yet. We got one, that was big, now we just have to protect home court.

Yeah, I think the frustration would mostly stem from how Portland was playing, with poor rotations as you said, but also the boneheaded mistakes (flagrant fouls, Nurk basically taking himself out of the game, the turnover parade). The refereeing had both teams testy. I hope Portland harnesses that frustration and lets loose in Game 3 --- the emotions were pretty high in this game, and teams can use that to their benefit or to their detriment as it's a very fine line.

I mean it seems like Denvers plan was to annoy Portland players we had the shove on Nurk early during a time out, and some other play's early in the game trying to antagonize.

Mike Malone's strategy seems to be a dick and make sure his players are as antagonizing as possible. He is a piece of **** though I saw him berate a reporter for daring to call him Mike instead of Michael. Anyone that gets annoyed about something so trifling is a real piece of work, especially when the interview was just about 2 minutes long.