An MRI on Trail Blazers guard Rodney Hood‘s left knee showed no structural damage and he’ll be listed as day-to-day for the Western Conference Finals, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. Hood suffered a bone bruise when he ran into a pick set by the Nuggets’ Torrey Craig during Portland’s Game 7 victory on Sunday. Hood, who enters unrestricted free agency this summer, was a major factor off the bench in the series against the Nuggets. He averaged 14.7 PPG in the conference semifinals.
We have more from the Northwest Division:
- Veteran forward Paul Millsap is intent on helping a team win a championship, whether it’s the Nuggets or another contending franchise, as he told Mike Singer of the Denver Post. The team holds a $30MM option on Millsap’s contract for next season. “We’ve proved everybody wrong,” the 34-year-old Millsap said. “For me, not really trying to prove everybody wrong, but prove to myself that I can do it my way and still win. I can do it with whoever I want to do it with. It ain’t got to be the Golden State Warriors of the Lakers or whatever. I can help a young, talented team reach that goal.”
- New Jazz GM Justin Zanik believes that continuity within the organization will get it to the next level, as he told Ryan McDonald of the Deseret News. Zanik was promoted from assistant GM last week. “We have a very experienced front office and we know what we need to do,” he said, “so however we get that done, we’re going to do it together and continue to just keep pushing forward with the Jazz to keep us on this championship-competitive path.”
- Zanik’s promotion, as well as the elevation of Dennis Lindsey to executive VP of basketball operations, doesn’t mean big changes are on the way, Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune writes.
It’s a shame that Portland has so many injuries, won’t be able to compete with GSW, Denver would have done better with their healthy roster & superhuman Jokic.
The series hasn’t even started yet, Nostradamus. And the Warriors are as banged up if not more hurt than the Blazers, just better rested.
Hey bud remember when you said the Nuggets were gonna beat the Blazers? Lol stop with the predictions, Stephen A.
Not gunna matter they all playing for second cause the Bucks are gunna win it all
Nostradamus had the series over when Denver was up 3-2 against Portland. ” Denver is gonna win as Jokic will have another historic game.” Here’s another from the master of the incorrect: ” … look your Blazers have already way exceeded their expectations, so be happy that the best team/player is gonna win. Just hope Jokic is enough to beat the GSW!” It is vaguely interesting that he implies he knew what the Blazers expectations were prior to entering the playoffs … vaguely.
Yup, and instead of admitting that they were wrong and congratulating Portland, it’s already on to “the Nuggets are a better matchup”, “Portland has no chance” etc. At this point I’m convinced they don’t watch basketball because after the game 7 against the Spurs, I knew the Nuggets weren’t going past the next round. I thought we were gonna play the Spurs LOL