The Portland Trail Blazers went into their second-round Western Conference playoff series against the Denver Nuggets as an incredibly hot team riding the high off of Damian Lillard's masterful first round performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The mood was so jovial among Blazers faithful and NBA fans alike (let's face it: Lillard is incredibly likeable) that no one wanted to address the seven-foot, 250-pound elephant in the room: just how was Portland going to guard Nuggets center Nikola Jokic?

We know that Jokic is a handful for any team. He is one of the game's most unique players in that he can do just about anything offensively. He can shoot. He can post. He can pass. He can make free throws. He can handle the ball.

But for the Blazers in particular? Defending Jokic is a nearly impossible task, as it is difficult to think of a team remaining in these playoffs that is less-equipped to deal with Jokic than Portland.

Gone is Jusuf Nurkic, who suffered a gruesome broken leg injury last month. Enes Kanter is playing with a separated shoulder, and even a healthy Kanter would still be at Jokic's mercy. Zach Collins is pretty light in the tail, and Meyers Leonard is, well, Meyers Leonard.

Now, you can just as easily make the counterargument that while the Blazers don't have an answer for Jokic, the Nuggets don't have an answer for Lillard, who dropped 39 points in Portland's Game 1 loss to Denver on Monday night.

But here is the thing: as little of an answer as the Nuggets have for Lillard, the Blazers have even less of an answer for Nikola Jokic, and that's a problem.

The 24-year-old finished with a ho-hum 37 points, nine rebounds and six assists in the win, making 11 of his 18 shots and burying three three-pointers.

Put Kanter on him? He'll pull him out to the perimeter. Put Collins on him? He'll take him down on the low block. Put Leonard on him? Well, he'll just do whatever he wants.

I'm not sure what type of strategy Terry Stotts can come up with to even contain Jokic, and that is a major issue. The Blazers have some good defensive players like Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless, but they are primarily wing defenders. You can send them on double teams, but then you are leaving shooters open.

Basically, the Blazers' only hope is to sit and pray that Nikola Jokic misses some shots, and judging from the fact that he shot 51.1 percent from the floor this season, that probably isn't going to happen too often.

Of course, no one really expected Portland to make any sort of deep playoff run this season, so I guess anything that happens from this point on is gravy. But, with the way the Blazers beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the opening round, and with the way Lillard absolutely torched Russell Westbrook, you thought that there really was a legitimate chance for Portland to make the Western Conference Finals.

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Honestly, though, it was probably always a long shot.

Think about it: if the San Antonio Spurs ended up knocking out the Nuggets, then, sure; the Blazers wouldn't have had to deal with Jokic in round two, but they would have then been tasked with defending LaMarcus Aldridge, which wouldn't have been all that much easier given their personnel.

Portland has not been a great defensive team up front all season long even with a healthy Nurkic, which definitely puts something on general manager Neil Olshey's to-do list this summer.

To be fair to the Blazers, this series is far from over. It was only one game, and it's not like Portland got run out of the gym. Plus, Denver is notoriously a tough place to play with the altitude change, so maybe the Blazers will be more prepared in Game 2.

But one thing that won't change is the fact that Jokic is a monster.

Yes, the playoffs are about talent, but they are also about matchups. Sometimes, you just run into a team that simply has a colossal edge at one spot, and it ends up deciding the series.

As special as Lillard is and as much of an advantage as he has over Jamal Murray and the rest of the Nuggets' guards, he doesn't carry the same weight that Jokic does, literally and figuratively.

We'll have to see how the Blazers respond in Game 2. Stotts will surely try to make some adjustments to make life more difficult for Jokic, but the problem is, he doesn't really have any weaknesses in his game offensively, so it's tough to put him in a spot where he will have trouble succeeding.

Regardless, Stotts and Portland have to try something, or else Nikola Jokic may make short work of the Blazers by himself.