By Canadian Press

McCollum leads Blazers past cold Nuggets, 97-90

May 1, 2019 | 10:33 PM

DENVER — CJ McCollum scored 20 points, picking up the slack with backcourt mate Damian Lillard struggling, and the Portland Trail Blazers turned back the Denver Nuggets 97-90 on Wednesday night to even their playoff series at 1-1.

The Trail Blazers led by 15 at halftime, 17 in the third quarter and 14 to start the fourth but the Nuggets pulled to 95-90 in the final minute thanks to an astonishing 14 offensive rebounds and a 19-9 run before Rodney Hood’s two free throws with 17 seconds left iced it.

“The good news is they had all of those offensive rebounds but they didn’t convert a lot,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said. “They were 8 for 24 on second-chance points. We were fortunate we came away not hurt as badly as we could have been on the offensive boards.

“(Nikola) Jokic and (Paul) Millsap were just playing volleyball with it. They’re both excellent offensive rebounders. They’re a top-three offensive rebounding team anyway and we’ve got to make sure they don’t have those opportunities in Game 3.”

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Lillard added 14 points but was just 5 of 17 from the floor and 1 of 7 from 3-point range, 24 hours after scoring 39 in the series opener. Still, the Blazers seized the home-court advantage with the series shifting to Portland for Game 3 on Friday night.

Jokic had 16 points and 14 boards but got off to a slow start and wasn’t nearly the take-control force he was in Game 1, when he scored 37 points.

With Jokic taking — and missing — just one shot in the first quarter and scoring six points in the first half, the Nuggets trailed 50-35 at halftime after the franchise’s worst quarter ever at home in the playoffs, one in which they made just 5 of 23 shots and missed all 10 of their 3-pointers.

Nuggets coach Michael Malone said he admonished his team at halftime, “‘if you’re not making shots, maybe attack the basket, maybe get to the foul line, maybe get to the rim.’ And we were getting such open looks. I understand our players shooting the shot. But when you’re not having a night when you’re making a shot consistently, you’ve got to attack the basket, you’ve got to push pressure on the rim. You’ve got to think attack instead of settle. And I thought in that first half we didn’t have that mind-set.”

To top it off, they lost sparkplug forward Torrey Craig, whose nose was bloodied after he was knocked down and slammed into teammate Monte Morris’ foot early in the second quarter.

Moments after Craig hobbled off, leaving a trail of blood, Maurice Harkless rolled his right ankle and also left the game. Harkless didn’t return but Craig came back in the second half.

The Nuggets were booed off the court at the break after missing their final eight shots. Denver’s backcourt was just 5 of 18 in the first half, including 2 of 11 from Jamal Murray, who would miss much of the fourth quarter while trying to loosen up his tight right thigh he hurt in the last series.

Craig, whose insertion into the starting lineup turned around the Nuggets’ first-round series against San Antonio, returned with a face mask with 3 minutes left in the third quarter. He immediately grabbed a rebound and his 3-pointer with a minute left in the quarter was Denver’s first since 1:11 of the first quarter.

“I think Torrey Craig is the unsung hero of the game,” Malone said. “He’s got some (guts). He’s got some toughness.”

SCUFFLE

Jokic pushed Enes Kanter, who slammed into Craig with 43.5 seconds left on a made free throw. Murray took exception to Kanter staring down the fallen Craig and a scuffle ensued at midcourt. Teammates raced to break them up and the two were assessed a double technical.

BOW TIES

Stotts and his assistants rocked bow ties Wednesday night in honour of Jon Yim, the team’s video co-ordinator and player development coach who was seriously injured in an auto accident last week that left him hospitalized with a broken leg and collapsed lung.

Yim’s bow tie habit led to “Bow Tie Wednesday,” a tradition that Stotts and his staff are continuing to pay respects to Yim and members of his family who were injured in the accident.

“It was for Jon Yim,” Stotts said. “On Wednesdays he would wear bow ties to the game. I think bow ties are undefeated this year.”

TIP-INS:

Portland: Starting forwards Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu combined for 10 points in the first quarter after being held to a combined four points in Game 1. … Lillard, whose 37-foot 3-pointer eliminated the Thunder last week, is just 5 of 19 from long range in this series.

Denver: The Nuggets missed 23 of 29 3-pointers. … Will Barton sank two foul shots with 8:19 left in the fourth quarter after an odd sequence in which the Jokic missed a jumper and the Nuggets missed five put-backs.

UP NEXT:

Game 3 is Friday night in Portland.

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Follow Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton

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More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Arnie Stapleton, The Associated Press