The Trail Blazers Outlasted Nikola Jokic And The Nuggets In An Epic 4OT Game 3 Thriller

Game 3 of the conference semifinals between the Trail Blazers and Nuggets was many things. First and foremost, it marked the return of basketball to Portland for the first time since Damian Lillard single-handedly attempted to detonate the Blazers’ home arena with a series-ending dagger.

It was also a test of wills between Nikola Jokic and the rest of Portland, as the big man was stellar in a four-overtime thriller that electrified the nightcap of Friday’s NBA slate. But despite a whopping 65 minutes from Jokic — in which he scored 33 points and had 18 rebounds and 14 assists — Rodney Hood lifted the Blazers in the game’s fourth overtime for a 140-137 win over Denver in one of the most epic Game 3s in recent NBA history.

Hood hit a three to give Portland a 138-136 lead with 17.8 seconds left in quadruple overtime that looks like this and mercifully ended one of the wildest games in NBA playoff history.

The box score from this game is ridiculous. But let’s focus on the actions of the extremely tired men who will play a Game 4 in less than 48 hours from Game 3’s finish on Sunday. CJ McCollum (41 points) played 60 minutes of his own on Friday, and he and Damian Lillard willed Portland through a game that saw epic punches and counter-punches from both sides.

Forget about the first half — the score was 48-47 after 24 minutes anyway, and there’s too much ground to cover in the five-minute frames of a game that reads like boxing round summaries from a bygone era of sports-writing. Jokic had 17 points in the third quarter, an effort that single-handedly kept Denver in the game, shooting 6-of-8 in the frame and hitting floaters that helped the Nuggets keep contact with Portland’s slim advantage.

In the fourth quarter, Jamal Murray had five quick points to give the Nuggets the lead, but it would not hold, the first of many single-digit leads that could win lesser playoff games. Lillard hit a running floater with 31.6 seconds left in regulation to give the Blazers a 102-100 lead.

Jokic’s ninth assist of the night evened the score at 102-102 on a Will Barton layup. The dime gave Portland a potential last shot of the game, but Al-Farouq Aminu missed a three with 6.7 seconds left, and the Nuggets rebounded and called timeout. The inbound pass never found Jokic, though, and the contest headed to overtime.

In the fifth frame it was just as close as it was in the fourth, with Denver carrying a two-point lead into the game’s wild final minute. A Nuggets turnover, however, gave Portland one last chance to tie, and they found a basket with a C.J. McCollum runner in the lane with 8.7 seconds to play in the extra frame.

Denver inbounded and Jokic, playing his 29th straight minute on the court, got the ball, but he couldn’t get off a clean shot from three, and the game headed to a second extra period.

Lillard started the second overtime period with a step-back J, and Denver answered inside to even it at 111-111. McCollum put back a rebound inside to give Portland the lead once more, and Lillard hit a three after Murray missed a layup inside to give Portland a quick five-point lead. Will Barton played a two-man game with Jokic and hit a three to close the gap, and Jokic notched yet another assist feeding Millsap inside for a layup that tied the game at 116.

McCollum hit another step-back jumper inside 90 seconds to play to give Portland another lead, but Gary Harris hit a reverse layup inside to tie it at 118 once again. A jump ball decided the endgame of the second overtime. Lillard got the tip, the Blazers called timeout, and set things up with 4.1 seconds to play. Lillard got the ball off the inbound and got off a three that made the Moda Center hold its breath, but it clanged just short for a third overtime.

McCollum opened the scoring of the third overtime, but Gary Harris hit a three to give Denver a 121-120 lead. McCollum then hit a step-back, a triple team of Jokic forced a turnover, and he hit again on a toe-on-the-line deuce to open a four-point lead with three minutes left in the third overtime period. Jokic responded by backing Kanter down in the lane. Then, Denver got a stop, and Barton hit a pair of free throws to tie the game at 125.

Murray hit a pair of free throws to give the Nuggets a 127-125 lead with just over a minute left. It was the Blazers, then, that capitulated: McCollum threw a bad pass that Torrey Craig picked off, and Millsap milked the clock and hit a fade-away to extend the Denver lead to four.

It did not last. Lillard hit a layup, Murray dribbled the ball out of bounds and Lillard hit another layup off an iso with 8.4 seconds left in triple overtime. It set up a fourth overtime that felt more like attrition than basketball, Hood’s three being the highlight and Denver unable to find a counter-punch in the game’s final 67 seconds. Jokic got to the free throw line 5.6 seconds left but only made one of two free throws, Seth Curry made two of his and the inbound pass Denver needed was intercepted by McCollum, ending one of the longest and craziest overtime games in NBA playoff history.