Surviving The Madness That Was The Blazers-Nuggets Quadruple OT Extravaganza

PORTLAND, Ore. — Terry Stotts summed it up best the moment he sat down at the podium.

“I have no idea what happened in the first half, or the second half, or the first three overtimes,” he said. “It was a helluva game. I’ve never been involved in a game like that.”

If you’ve watched the NBA long enough, you think you’ve seen it all. But the 2019 Portland Trail Blazers are on a whole other plane of existence right now, one in which career-defining performances and historical anomalies are just par for the course on a nightly basis.

In their first game back at the Moda Center after Damian Lillard’s world-destroying shot against OKC, we’d all braced ourselves for what we assumed would be a vicious dogfight against a slavering Nuggets team in Game 3, but even all the craziness so far couldn’t have prepared us for what happened on Friday night.

And we’re still not quite sure exactly what we just witnessed. We could give you a collection of facts, how C.J. McCollum, for instance, had the game of his life (Hi Jennifer!), how it was the longest playoff game in nearly 70 years, how the star players on both sides logged a mind-boggling number of minutes as they combined to play a full game-and-a-half of basketball.

Still, none of that would do justice to the sheer insanity of a quadruple overtime playoff game that rode so many tides and swells that we’re still feeling a bit queasy one day later. Just watching it was so mentally and emotionally taxing that the idea of actually participating in something like that is nearly unfathomable. And yet both squads were more than up to the task, each trying to pummel the other into submission and each refusing to budge even an inch as together they waged a battle of attrition that felt as if it could go on forever.

At some point around the third OT, we simply gave up trying to keep track of who had purportedly hit a dagger to seal the win, only to have it erased on the next possession, and the cycle start all over again, and on and on into what we were beginning to fear might be infinity.

“The game was won and lost so many times by both teams,” Stotts said. “It was a roller coaster. I don’t know if it was as much elation as it was relief. But I’ll take either one.”

What we know for sure is that in the final (final, final) moments, it wasn’t Dame or C.J. who came through with the last-second heroics this time. Instead, it was Rodney Hood, who delivered the knockout punch of the night, in the process completing one of the better redemption arcs in recent memory.

After his nightmarish showing in the Finals last year with Cleveland, Hood has spent the season trying to rehabilitate to his image and has often been the forgotten man in Portland. But with the Blazers down one with 20 seconds to go in the fourth OT, he found the ball on his hands after a mad scramble, and he responded by calmly knocking down the biggest shot of his career.

“It means a lot,” Hood said after the game. “That’s God. I stayed patient. I didn’t get down on myself, even when a lot of people did. Trust in God. I just didn’t give up. I didn’t give up on myself. I just kept playing, kept working. And I had no idea that I’d end up here in Portland, in this type of situation, but to be here, to have my family in the crowd. I saw a lot of sad faces last go around. To be here is very emotional for me, to be quite frank.”

Hood finished with 19 points and was 2-for-3 from downtown. As important as that shot was, Portland never would’ve been in that position without McCollum, who was spectacular as he led his team with 41 points, eight rebounds, four assists, and four steals, placing him in truly elite company alongside some of the best postseason performers of all time.

Time after time, McCollum came up with game-saving plays, whether it was a steal on a lazy cross-court pass or a silky mid-range jumper with a hand in his face to give his team a little separation. And sporting a vintage Blazers Starter jacket to the postgame presser, one that he’s apparently been saving for the second round, he also had the quote of the night.

“It’s hard out here,” McCollum said, “but sometimes I make it look easy.”

We haven’t even gotten to the Nuggets yet, or Nikola Jokic, who continued to show why he’s one of the best all-round big men in the NBA. A lot has been made lately about Jokic as a physical specimen, and not in a flattering way. Most discussions about his fitness begin and end with a general dumbfoundedness as to how he’s able to perform at such a high level with what can politely be described as a noticeable lack of muscle definition and conditioning.

But just as he’s been throughout his young career, the Joker was unstoppable in Game 3 en route to 33 points, 18 rebounds, and 14 assists. Using mostly single-coverage with a smaller, offensive-minded big man like Enes Kanter — who certainly deserves credit for being game — the Blazers had to live with the results, and those results weren’t pretty. They dared Jokic to shoot, and he obliged. They guarded him one-on-one, and he simply had his way with whoever they threw at him.

Still, the Blazers continued to believe that they were willing to concede whatever Joker might punish them with as long as they could make it up on the other end. It was a dangerous bet, for sure, but one that paid off, as Denver eventually ran the wheels off of Jokic. The All-Star center played a total of 64 minutes, 30 consecutive at one stretch in the second half and the overtimes, and was visibly gassed toward the end as he missed a key free throw in the final seconds that could’ve tied the game yet again.

Head coach Mike Malone said the first thing he did after the final buzzer was apologize to his center for playing him so many minutes, especially with the quick turnaround for Game 4, which tips off at 4 p.m. PT back at the Moda Center on Sunday. But Jokic, for his part, seemed mostly nonplussed about it.

“To be honest, in that moment, in that time, you don’t even think about how much minutes you’re playing,” Jokic said. “You’re just trying to win a game. After the game, of course, I think it’s a lot. But I’m not gonna go out in the fourth or overtime.”

His teammates Jamal Murray and Will Barton were both equally impressive, hitting big shots in the overtime periods that under normal circumstances would’ve secured their team the win, even if these were decidedly abnormal circumstances, ones not seen for decades and ones that likely won’t be replicated anytime soon.

But then again, with the way things have gone for Portland this postseason, we’ve not only had to re-calibrate our notions of what’s possible. We’ve had to check our pulse from time to time to make sure our hearts aren’t about to explode and splash cold water on our faces just to make it through the wild, white-knuckle ride that has been their journey through these playoffs.

And in a little more than 24 hours, we’ll gather back at the Moda Center to do it all over again, whether we’re ready or not.