Despite Minutes Restriction, Nurkic Shows Out

Although the Portland Trail Blazers ultimately dropped the game to the Memphis Grizzlies, big man Jusuf Nurkic brought a dominant performance on offense to the floor, even with a minutes restriction in place. According to Jamie Hudson of NBC Sports Northwest, Coach Terry Stotts acknowledged Nurkic’s contributions.

“It was his best game of the season, that’s obvious. Probably the best thing was, offensively, he finished around the basket. It was one of his better finishing nights.”

As for Nurkic, he felt that he could have done more, especially on defense.

“It’s on us. We know they play hard. They have a young team. Their transition points are huge for them,” Nurkic said of the various challenges that come with guarding Memphis. “We go in the game with a game plan and the coaches prepare us, but we didn’t do a job.”

The good thing is that we still had a chance to win the game, but when you allowed, I didn’t even know, 58-60 points in the paint that’s way too much.”

Once the minutes restriction is gone, we can hope for the full return of the Bosnian Beast.