locked on NBA Thursday edition. I'm David Locke joined by Ben Goliver of the Washington Post. Portland and Denver will go back to Portland tied at one so three of the four series are tied at one and we're getting

the NBA playoffs as we wanted it one of them was 2-0 which means there's a 90 plus

percent chance that the Warriors have won that series and probably won the title.

We'll talk about that coming up, but let's get to the game last night.

Portland beats Denver 97 to 90.

Okay, is it possible that I can finish this game though, feeling like very energized about the

spirit of the Denver Nuggets as much as I am impressed by what Terry Stots continually

is pulling off with the Blazers been?

Yeah, this is a weird game.

It's either like the truism came completely true

or was proven completely false.

Like the truism for the nuggets is,

look, if Jamal Murray doesn't shoot well, doesn't score, they're probably cooked, if he does,

they're going to win.

That's exactly what happened from the Denver side.

But the truism for the Blazers is if Lillard, if they're going to win in the playoffs without use of Nurkage, Lillard has to go off and play huge.

And actually he didn't, and they were still able to win relatively comfortably,

even though that's one of the worst offensive games he's probably played in months so it

was a weird game to analyze but what makes you say that?

Well I thought there's the spirit of the nuggets the incredible offensive rebounding

the signature of this nuggets team all season long

has been their ability to win close games,

...