The Portland Trail Blazers and Jusuf Nurkic will be visiting the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center Monday night. It may be a regular game for all other Blazers players, and to some wearing the Nuggets colors, but not for Nurkic.
This will be the Bosnian center's first game in front of his former team's home crowd after being traded in February of 2017. Mike Richman of The Oregonian has had the opportunity to talk with Nurkic about the subject.
“Yeah, that's a game I looked forward to definitely,” Nurkic said. “It's a regular game here, but over there [it's] not. So, definitely super excited for Monday, looking for another win definitely.”
All other games played between the Blazers and Nuggets between that period up to today have been in the Moda Center in Portland. During that stretch, Nurkic was playing with a mission to prove his former team wrong in trading him, averaging 20 points and seven rebounds per game, as Richman detailed.
This included a home victory against the visiting Nuggets that sent the Blazers to the playoffs and destroyed Denver's playoffs aspirations last season.
In his last campaign with the Nuggets, Nurkic averaged eight points and 5.8 rebounds per game. He is now averaging 14.4 points and eight rebounds per game with the Blazers this season.
The former Nugget is also enjoying a more significant role with the Blazers, which has helped in increasing his numbers. Back in Denver, Nurkic got benched by head coach Mike Malone, prompting the front office to ship him to Portland through a trade.
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