Jusuf Nurkić played basketball today
After nearly 16 months, the Bosnian Beast was back on an NBA floor
Jusuf Nurkić played basketball today. The simplicity of that statement carries more weight than any description of any other action from the Blazers first scrimmage at Disney World could. For all of us, save for the members of the actual Portland Trail Blazers, it was the first time seeing him since his career season was taken away from him against the Brooklyn Nets last March.
For weeks, as the Blazers had sanctioned workouts and made their way to Disney World, the Bosnian Beast had played it cool. As recently as Wednesday, he continued downplaying anything related to nerves. But as we’ve come to learn with Nurk, that’s just how he plays things. After playing his first semi-real NBA action in a long time, the Bosnian Beast was the Vulnerable Beast. Well, as vulnerable as he can get.
“It’s great to be back,” he said. “That feeling, the excitement, no words man. After tip-off, the flow of the game is the same when I left off. The flow of the game was as nice as you can get.” He then went on to say that he was more worn out from his pregame emotions than he was from running up and down.
Maybe it’s a bi-product of being a part of Terry Stotts’ flow offense for going on four years now but the flow was what concerned Nurkić most. The flow helped ease the anxiety. It probably took the rest of us seeing him make 6-foot-7 Jakarr Sampson a mouse in the house on the right block but that’s the difference between beasts and us regular folk. Oddly enough, it was kind of perfect the Blazers played a team without any centers because his first game would have been on March 15 against the Houston Rockets, who famously are trying to bury the center position. And Nurk did what you need a hulking 7-footer to do against smallball, throwing his weight around and making the Pacers look small in a 29-20 first quarter. By the way, the Rockets are on the Restart Schedule, so this dry run wasn’t all for naught.
Hassan Whiteside said last night while sitting in kiddie pools with Nurk and Zach Collins that Disney World is a magical place and for that quarter we felt the magic through the TV screen. Even enough, for 10 minutes, to ignore the late scratch of Whiteside from the Blazers starting line-up, with another “sore but totally fine Achilles,” which rightfully has people recalling the Rodney Hood injury again.
Nevertheless, Zach Collins playing in Whiteside’s place made a strong case to be Portland’s starting unit in their first quarter run. Collins looked comfortable passing the ball out of the post and he also had a right to left finish that I don’t remember being in his bag.
Collins’ defense remained solid and it can’t be overstated how much better Portland’s first quarter defense looked with two seven-footers compared to the sinking boat held together by Whiteside’s occasional ability to make an amazing contest. It’s hard to imagine Whiteside and Nurkić (aka NurkSide, aka Whurkić) playing better together than Nurkić and Collins did but the vertical ability of Whiteside is great enough and unique enough in the league, that it still merits curiosity, which Stotts still has about the line-up. Let’s hope the healing waters of Lake Buena Vista can find a cure for Whiteside.
However, the Blazers starting lineup of Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Carmelo Anthony, Collins and Nurkić didn’t exactly bookend their performance in the 3rd after a great 1st quarter. Dame appeared to be more concerned with getting the team back into the flow of things than he did try to be an MVP candidate, which is the smart play in Fake Game 1. CJ still showed he can get buckets, but the good defense was erased in the third quarter as the Pacers playmakers, Victor Oladipo, TJ Warren and Malcolm Brogdon unleashed a barrage of pull-up 3-pointers with Portland’s hands often being too late to get a good contest. But again, none of the detailed shit I just described really matters.
Jusuf Nurkić played basketball today. All the prayers from that quiet and somber Blazers locker room when Nurkić went down on March 25, 2019, were answered Thursday afternoon. The Blazers could barely make a shot today. Damian Lillard took only five shots and CJ McCollum got stuffed by the rim on a dunk. Portland took an L in the scrimmage and yet, this afternoon’s scrimmage was a massive W for the franchise. But especially for Nurkić.