Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic managed to get revenge on his former team, the Denver Nuggets, on Tuesday night when the two teams played. Nurkic, who was traded by Denver last month, thoroughly dominated the Nuggets in an emphatic 122-113 Portland victory.
It was the kind of beatdown fans of Nurkic hoped to see — and he delivered, producing an unreal stat line of 33 points, 16 rebounds and 3 rejections. He also shot an efficient 12-of-15 from the field and 9-of-12 from the charity stripe.
“Jusuf Nurkic kicked our ass,” Nuggets coach Mike Malone said after the game, according to CSNNW. “He was very physical. To come on the road and give up 28 second-chance points, we couldn’t rebound all night. It’s a tough loss for us.”
Nurkic, 22, was drafted by the Nuggets in 2014 with their first round pick. The team selected fellow promising big Nikola Jokic that same draft in the second round. Nurkic’s role with the Nuggets gradually decreased over the course of the season, largely because of the stellar play coming from Jokic.
The 33 points from Nurkic on Tuesday were a career-best, and his sendoff interview was arguably just as good, where he wished his former team to ‘have a great summer’.
Nevertheless, Denver (35-39) and Portland (36-38) continue to battle neck-and-neck for the final Playoff seed out West. With less than three weeks remaining in the regular season, Portland’s victory on Tuesday was unquestionably significant towards their chances of making the postseason.
