When two players like Nikola Jokic and Damian Lillard are throwing haymakers left and right, it’s easy to look past what ultimately is going to decide this series. In the first two games of of the Nuggets/Blazers series, bench play has been the deciding factor in both contents.
Even in a game that saw Lillard score 42 points and Jokic go for 38 points, it ended up being the play of two players on two-way contracts — Markus Howard and Shaq Harrison — alongside Paul Millsap, JaMychal Green, and Monte Morris that decided the outcome of the game.