Portland Trail Blazers are dangerous with a healthy Jusuf Nurkic
By Nick Alvarez
Jusuf Nurkic is off to a good start for the Portland Trail Blazers
As the NBA scrimmages have begun in Orlando, one game stood out above the rest in Thursday’s slate of games and that was the Portland Trail Blazers playing the Indiana Pacers. Many NBA enthusiasts have been itching to see what a complete and healthy Blazers team would like and we got a taste of it earlier this week.
In the game in which Indiana narrowly topped Portland 91-88, the Trail Blazers showed just how important the additions of Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic are. Just having those two players looked to be enough to instill confidence in the Blazers that they can be the team that tops Memphis for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Even in a loss, the Trail Blazers showed especially in the first quarter that when they are playing up to full-speed with a healthy lineup that there’s just no stopping them, especially offensively. A big part of Portland flashing their true potential in their first game back was on Jusuf Nurkic.
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Jusuf Nurkic makes the Portland Trail Blazers dangerous
Even though the addition of Collins is important as well due to his spacing ability, Nurkic showed just how much he impacts the game and how he can bring the Blazers over the edge. In 20 minutes of action, Nurkic scored 14 points to go along with grabbing eight rebounds with an assist and a block to cap it off.
Nurkic’s performance went beyond the box score though as he added nuances to Portland’s attack that is going to need to be accounted for as he is one of the most versatile big men in the NBA.
In Nurkic’s performance, he showed the ability to score down low as a post-up threat, to help get lead guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum open looks and playmaking opportunities with hard screens, and even some playmaking ability of his own by making smart passes.
Yes, there was a little rust in Nurkic’s first game back but that’s expected from a player who hasn’t played game action in over a year. He may have had times where he was a little slow to get up the court and he might have missed a couple of defensive rotations but that’s because he’s still getting his legs back under him. Through it all though, he was still Portland’s best player on the floor.
What does it mean moving forward?
By the time the seeding games arrive, expect Nurkic to be even better in the sense that he will have a couple of scrimmages under his belt and time in practice to continue to make progress. The most important thing to consider when looking at the Blazers’ first scrimmage is that for as good as Nurkic was there was a lot of rust in star Damian Lillard’s game coming back.
Once Portland gets both Lillard and McCollum running and gunning at that level they were at before the season stopped then it will just make Nurkic’s presence on the time even more valuable and it will give head coach Terry Stotts even more offensive options than he’s had all season.
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The synergy that Nurkic gives to the Lillard-McCollum duo is evident because there’s no way Portland wins 53 games and holds the sixth-best offense in the season last year without him. Now that the big man is back teams should be scared of the Blazers and their playoff push because they might just reach a ceiling even higher than they have before.