PORTLAND, Ore. — It was win or stay home on Thursday night, and the Trail Blazers decided they wanted at least one more road trip this postseason.
Portland forced a deciding Game 7 with a 119-108 win against the Denver Nuggets in Game 6 of the teams' second-round playoff series Thursday at the Moda Center.
It was a remarkable turnaround for the Blazers after losing Game 5 by 26 points. Portland got a boost in Game 6 from two unsung heroes, Rodney Hood and Zach Collins, who came off the bench to galvanize the Blazers after a sluggish start.
Hood scored 25 points, including 14 during a 16-minute stretch spanning the first and second quarters. When Hood entered the game for the first time with 4:12 left in the first quarter, the Blazers were trailing 22-14. He wasn't taken out of the game until 32 seconds before halftime, and he'd helped engineer a 13-point turnaround, with the Blazers leading 57-52.
BOX SCORE: Trail Blazers 119, Nuggets 108
"Rodney Hood was the MVP of the game and had a huge impact," Nuggets head coach Mike Malone said after the game. "You can't speak enough about Rodney Hood. Not just the impact that Rodney had tonight, but the impact he's had the whole series. ... Talk about a young man stepping up and taking advantage of a situation in an elimination game."
Hood averaged just three points per game in the Blazers' first-round series against the Thunder. But against the Nuggets, he's averaging 16.2 points per game, and shooting 62.4% from the field and 58.3% from the 3-point line.
"After the game, I said he's probably been our most consistent player over the course of this series," Blazers star guard Damian Lillard said. "I feel like all six games, he's had a good game, so we're going to need him to continue that [in] Game 7."
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Collins was also instrumental in the Blazers' victory. He played 29 minutes, the highest number of minutes he's played in any game this season, regular or postseason. He finished with 14 points, five blocks and four rebounds.
Lillard said that Collins' impact on the game went beyond the box score. The sharpness with which he executed the Blazers' game plan stood out.
"I think his aggressiveness, how sharp he was mentally in the rotations, and a lot of the adjustments we wanted to make, I think that was the most impressive thing that he did," Lillard said. "A lot of people on the outside, they just look for ... the obvious stats, but it's a lot of the stuff that you walk through in shootarounds, that you go through when you watch film, ... just positioning and stuff that you want out of players. ... A lot of people might not notice those things but as his teammates, we notice how sharp he was in those things that we wanted to do."
Collins has been good in this series, averaging 9.0 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.7 blocks in 20.8 minutes per game. One area that's limited his impact, however, has been foul trouble. Coming into Thursday's game, Collins was averaging nearly eight fouls per 36 minutes. In Game 6, he had just two, which allowed him to play more minutes.
Blazers coach Terry Stotts pointed out that he was able to play Collins "the whole fourth quarter, [and] probably ... the whole second quarter" because he wasn't in foul trouble.
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"The fact that he was able to impact the game at the defensive end and stay out of foul trouble, it's important for him," Stotts said. "I think that's a part of his growth as a young player, is learning what he can do and what he can't do."
There was a lot of praise after the game for Hood and Collins, and deservedly so. But the Blazers' two star guards were also excellent.
Lillard had 32 points, including 17 in the third quarter, and five assists. He broke out of a series-long shooting slump, connecting on 11 of 23 shots, including 6 of 13 from the 3-point line. McCollum added 30 points, six rebounds and six assists, and also shot the ball well, making 12 of 24 shots.
It wasn't just Lillard who broke out of a shooting slump. As a team, the Blazers, who shot 37% from the field and 27% from the 3-point line in the Game 5 loss, turned it around in Game 6, shooting 46.1% from the field and 45.5% from the 3-point line.
"I think over the course of the series, or at least after Game 1, [we] just haven't seen the ball go in consistent enough," Lillard said. "My job is to stay aggressive, keep doing what I do, and tonight, the shots fell."
Now the Blazers and Nuggets are headed for a Game 7. This will be the first Game 7 of Lillard's career.
"It's for our season. For all the marbles," Lillard said. "I'm not going in there saying I've never been in a Game 7, I'm going in there saying I know what this team is capable of. I know what I am and who I am as a player, and I'm going in there to get the job done."
Jared Cowley writes about the Trail Blazers and other topics for KGW.com. He's also the co-host of the 3-on-3 Blazers podcast (listen here). You can reach him on Twitter @jaredcowley.
Reporter notebook
KGW's Orlando Sanchez and Jared Cowley were at the Moda Center, covering the game. Watch postgame interviews, and relive the action with all the pregame, in-game, and postgame tweets from Orlando, Jared and other members of the Portland and Denver media.
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