In a highly anticipated contest between the Blazers and Nuggets on Tuesday night, Portland walked away with a 122-113 victory behind a dominant performance from Jusuf Nurkic.
Nurkic, who obliterated his former team by dropping a career-high 33 points, even topped the night off with a funny postgame remark — a remark nobody in or around Denver likely found funny.
Nuggets coach Mike Malone put it plain: “Jusuf Nurkic kicked out ass,” he said.
For the Nuggets, Jameer Nelson scored 22, Nurkic gave a typical all-around stat line, and Kenneth Faried contributed 17 minutes of quality action off the bench. Faried finished with eight points and 14 rebounds in that limited span, and was one of two players who tallied a positive net rating on the night.
He was especially angry following the loss:
Kenneth Faried: "I am more than furious, just overall. We're a better team than that, we know it….they out-played us, out-coached us…"
— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) March 29, 2017
Denver has explored trading Faried in recent years, but to no avail, he remains on the same team that drafted him six years ago.
This season, Faried has averaged a career-low 9.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 21.4 minutes per game. For the kind of talent he possesses, many believe he is deserving of a better situation — though, calling out your coaching staff certainly isn’t the best idea to improve your current one.
