The Matchup<\/p>\n
PositionNuggetsBlazersAdvantagePGJamal MurrayJrue HolidayNuggetsSGChristian BraunToumani CamaraEvenSFCameron JohnsonJerami GrantEvenPFAaron GordonDeni AvdijaEvenCNikola JokicDonovan ClinganNuggetsBenchBruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas, Spencer Jones, Peyton WatsonKris Murray, Robert Williams III, Matisse Thybulle, Scoot Henderson, Sidy CissokoEven<\/p>\n
Injury report: Peyton Watson \u2013 questionable (hamstring), DaRon Holmes II \u2013 out (G-League), Curtis Jones \u2013 out (G-League), KJ Simpson \u2013 out (G-League); Jerami Grant \u2013 questionable (foot), Vit Krejci \u2013 questionable (calf), Damian Lillard \u2013 out (achilles), Shaedon Sharpe \u2013 out (fibula), Yang Hensen \u2013 out (G-League), Chris Youngblood \u2013 out (G-League), Caleb Love \u2013 out (G-League).<\/p>\n
The Three Things<\/p>\n
The thing to watch for: Peyton Watson\u2019s return<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/USATSI_27468186-1024x683.jpg\")
Oct 31, 2025; Portland, Oregon, USA; Portland Trail Blazers guard Jrue Holiday (5) drives to the basket during the first half against Denver Nuggets guard Peyton Watson (8) at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Peyton Watson will make his return to the court today after being out six weeks with a strained hamstring. Right before he got hurt Peyton was blossoming. He found himself thrust into a primary scorers role with all the injuries the Nuggets had and he showed he was capable of being a go to scorer for Denver. ON top of that, his defense was reaching elite levels with even the best scorers looking to avoid him and hunting a switch anytime they found themselves staring PWat opposite them on the court. Watson has the makings of an elite talent and though he\u2019s now in his fourth season he is still just 23 years old. If he can return to the level he was playing before the injury the Nuggets are going to have another scary piece coming off their bench that could likely end up closing more games than he doesn\u2019t come hte playoffs.<\/p>\n
The thing to remember: Portland is playing for the playoffs<\/p>\n
The Blazers post Damian Lillard rebuild (even though they re-signed Damian Lillard) has largely to this point been about acquiring bad contracts in exchange for draft picks and waiting those contracts out or using them to acquire other bad contracts. It\u2019s a sound rebuild strategy but the funny thing about Portland is they\u2019ve acquired just enough talent in the form of overpaid veterans who are past their primes but still good to make the Blazers a fringe playoff team. Right now they are firmly headed to the play-in tournament with no hope of tanking their way out of it. Ninth place Portland is eight and a half games up on the eleventh place New Orleans Pelicans. This means there\u2019s really nothing else do except make a go of it with Jrue Holiday, Jerami Grant and Portland\u2019s one legitimate star Deni Avdija. Expect them to play Denver tough today as they are in a dead tie with the eighth seeded Los Angeles Clippers.<\/p>\n
The thing to bet: Over 241.5<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a big believer in day games being defensive slop fests. Denver\u2019s defense has been pretty suspect against everyone who hasn\u2019t been the walking wounded Philadelphia 76ers. Portland\u2019s also got the scoring to get t0 120 points against suspect defenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Basics Who: Denver Nuggets (43-28) vs Portland Trail Blazers (35-36) When: 3PM MDT Where: The Can. Devner,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[877,7,601,980,187,762,5673,2038,6,253,687,471,3967,66,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-673123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-blazers","11":"tag-deni-avdija","12":"tag-denver-nuggets","13":"tag-jamal-murray","14":"tag-jerami-grant","15":"tag-jrue-holiday","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nikola-jokic","18":"tag-portland","19":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","20":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116274456106769658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}