DENVER – The biggest problem the Trail Blazers are going to have against the Denver Nuggets is that Russell Westbrook doesn’t play for the Nuggets.

There wasn’t anybody to leave wide open Monday night the way Portland left Westbrook uncovered. And there were too many able scorers to allow many double-teams, too.

And the result was a 121-113 Blazer loss in Game 1 of the second-round series.

Portland could have used a few more double-teams on Nikola Jokic, who went for 37 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists. But doubling him isn’t much of an option when he’s surrounded by the bevy of three-point shooters on the Denver perimeter.

Six Nuggets made at least one three-point goal and Denver made 41.4 percent from behind the arc. The Blazers shot well – 51.9 percent from the floor – but were plagued by a lot of lazy, looping passes that turned into Nugget fast breaks. The winners scored 23 points off 18 Blazer turnovers.

And that wasn’t the only problem. Portland sent the Nuggets to the foul line 31 times and they made 27 of them with Jokic going a perfect 12-12.

Jokic, I must say, is a superstar and is already being officiated like one. It’s hard to get a foul called on him and it doesn’t take much contact to send him to the line. And even more of a problem sometimes, he has a habit of camping in the key, several times much longer than the allotted three seconds.

But the Blazers just didn’t have it Monday. And this series is going to require something much closer to perfection than this game – as a second-round series should.

The Trail Blazers got 39 points from Damian Lillard, 26 from their injured center, Enes Kanter, and 16 from CJ McCollum. But their starting forwards managed just two points apiece.

And the turnovers were a real problem.

“I thought the four turnovers we had at the end of the first half really took away some of our momentum,” Portland Coach Terry Stotts said. “We had some soft plays, soft turnovers, especially at the end of the half. There’s no question the turnovers hurt us. It was a good offensive game but I thought the turnovers really made the difference.”

Maurice Harkless was one of the Blazers who took a turn defending Jokic, a frustrating task.

“Tonight, I feel like he got a lot of easy buckets,” he said. “He kind of got what he wanted all night. We’ve just got to do a good job of making it tough on him, whether that’s being physical, or whatever it is, we’ve got to make it harder for him.”

Harkless talked about the difficulty of playing a team with a much different style than OKC.

“Absolutely, I think that’s what makes it tough,” he said. “You go from playing a team who is a lot of pick and roll, a lot of one on one, to play against a team with a lot of movement – pretty much just moving around the whole game. If that doesn’t work, then they get to the pick and roll, so it’s a little different. I think we did a good job yesterday of preparing but tonight they just played a little harder than we did. We didn’t execute as well as we should on either end.”

Lillard talked about the turnovers being a problem.

“That was a huge part of it,” he said. “I know I had six of them myself. As much as I have the ball, I’m responsible for valuing possessions.

“We’ve got to limit those and at least get shots up at the rim, then we give ourselves a much better chance.”

And Denver is certainly a very different matchup than Portland faced in the first round.

“Obviously, they’re different team,” Lillard said. “With OKC, I don’t think they had the kind of shooters that Denver has. (Denver) has a lot of guys out there who are pretty much knock-down shooters and then they’ve got a guy in the middle who is a facilitator.

“There’s a lot of action going on and you’ve got to honor that because they take advantage of those things and they end up seeing the right plays and making the right plays and they produce more quality looks.

“They make it harder on you to get out there and take that shot away. In those situations, our communication just wasn’t good enough. Some of our coverages that we prepped before the game, we just didn’t do it well enough and they turned into open threes for guys we don’t want to give open threes.”

One of many problems. And solving them is going to be a tough task against a very tough team. Game 2 – the next chance – will be Wednesday night in the same venue.

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