Trail Blazers backcourt saves day in victory over Denver

DENVER – Damian Lillard's shots kept banging off the backboard, rattling off the rim, going everywhere but through the hoop.

The Portland Trail Blazers are going to the Western Conference finals anyway, because CJ McCollum had his back.

McCollum scored 37 points and added a crucial chase-down block in the closing minutes that helped the Blazers beat the Denver Nuggets 100-96 on Sunday to advance to their first conference championship since 2000.

They'll open Tuesday night at Golden State against the two-time defending NBA champion Warriors in a series pitting Portland's Seth Curry against his big brother, Golden State star Steph Curry.

Lillard scored 13 points and made just three of 17 shots from the field, but two of them were critical three-pointers in the fourth quarter that put Portland ahead 81-76 and 92-85.

"It's a luxury to have two guys like that who can find different ways to score in different ways," Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. "CJ does it one way, Dame does it in another. On a night when Dame struggled shooting the ball, CJ came up big."

Nuggets coach Michael Malone saw it, too.

None bigger than when his crucial chase-down block with 4:44 left and the Trail Blazers leading 87-83. McCollum raced to stop a breakaway layup by Jamal Murray, who missed 14 of 18 shots.

"Seth did a good job of cutting off his lane and making him have to go over his head," McCollum said. "He put it right there for me, and I went and got it 'Bron style. Shout-out to my guy 'Bron."

Lillard said it was just the spark the Blazers needed to complete the comeback from a 17-point first-half hole.

"Those are the plays that get teams going, coming off a turnover and they get an easy one," he said.

The Nuggets were down 96-95 coming out of a timeout when McCollum hit a pull-up jumper over Torrey Craig with 12.4 seconds left.