Three NBA playoff games happened on Tuesday. The Denver Nuggets came back from a 19-point trailing to defeat the San Antonio Spurs 114-105 at the Pepsi Center, tying the series 1-1. The Portland Trail Blazers claimed a 20-point victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder 114-94 at the Moda Center, expanding their lead to 2-0. The Toronto Raptors beat the Orlando Magic 111-82 at the Scotiabank Arena in a one-sided game.

Nuggets vs. Spurs, never give up and you will have your chance

Denver saw four of their players score double-digit points: Jamal Murray had the highest 24 while Gary Harris got 23. Nikola Jokic missed tow assists for his second triple double as he dropped 21 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists. Paul Milsap put down 20 points by making seven of 10 shots.

DeMar DeRozan scored 31 points for San Antonio, the most on the court. LaMarcus Aldridge had 24 points and eight rebounds while Derrick White contributed 17 points. None of the rest of the team got over 10 points.

The Spurs continued to exploit their advantage in the game, DeRozan and Aldridge, which helped them lead by 19 points twice in respectively the second and the third quarter. The Nuggets were only able to catch up thanks to the efforts by Milsap, Harris and Jokic. By contrast, Murray seemed to be plagued by his disappointing performance in Game 1 and only got three points via free throws in the first three quarters.

Things finally took a favorable turn for Denver's No.27 young man in Q4. Murry first used a perimeter shot to break his field goal drought and then narrowed the score difference down to three points 93-90 with a layup. He took over the game in the last six minutes with 17 points including two straight three-pointers, making the Spurs admit their loss by sending the complete bench squad.

Before Murray took the last shot (which already ceased to matter at that time), he already buried eight shots in a row, right after missing eight consecutive ones, a perfect scenario for salvation.

The Spurs will return to their home court, the AT & T Center for Game 3 and Game 4. They should learn from Tuesday's loss that though their defense could give the Nuggets a hard time, the Spurs themselves did not gain much in front of Denver's defense, especially in the second half of the game.

Trail Blazers vs. Thunder, they are doing the same thing

C.J. McCollum shot down Portland's highest 33 points while Damian Lillard scored 29 points-the two together sank seven three-pointers out of 15 attempts. Maurice Harkless got 14 points and nine rebounds.

Paul George had 27 points for Oklahoma City while Russell Westbrook missed one rebound for triple-double with his 14 points, nine rebounds and 11 assists. Steven Adams dropped 16 points and nine re bounds.

Having learnt their lesson from the last game when Enes Kanter had 20 points and 18 rebounds, the Thunder aimed for the Turkish center in offense and kept assaulting Rip City's paint. As a result, Trail Blazers only gave Kanter 19 minutes in the game and he only got six points and five rebounds.

OKC's tactics were simple, attacking the opponent's rim to force them to do help defense so there are open shots in the two corners or the wings. Theoretically it's the correct option but unfortunately, it was another cold night for the team on the 3-pt line-Oklahoma City made only five three-pointers out of 28 shots. The more they missed, the more Portland chose to close in with their defense, leading to only 94 points by OKC.

The Trail Blazers chose the same play in offense and the difference was that they, specifically Lillard and McCollum, made their shots from the 3-pt line, which led to chain reaction: since Lillard (McCollum) was the real outside threat, the Thunder's defense had to get close to defend them, making it easier for him to penetrate; after he broke through the first-tier defense, someone else had to come to help, leaving their defensive target open; then whoever received the ball only needed to make the shot once to make OKC's defense hesitate on whether to help and that will make offense more comfortable for Lillard and McCollum.

Raptors vs. Magic, give the ball to Kawhi Leonard

The reason behind Toronto's 29-point win was simple: instead of pursuing egalitarianism in offense, coach Nick Nurse asked his team to give the ball to Kawhi Leonard from the beginning. Leonard responded to his expectation well by making five of seven shots to get 12 points in the first quarter and sinking 15 shots out of 22 attempts to get 37 points in the whole game.

Kyle Lowry also found his shot back and he buried 8 of 13 shots to score 22 points. He, Leonard and Marc Gasol together made nine three-pointers, the same Orlando's whole team did.

The Magic made a terrible mistake in offense. As Nikola Vucevic could not beat Gasol one-on-one in the paint, Orlando stopped passing the ball to him and relied on out-shooting and penetrating, which did not work either. However, if they keep moving the ball, Vucevic is fast enough to get rid of Gasol in motion and seek scoring opportunities. When the team come back to the Amway Center, coach Steve Clifford needs to scratch his brain for something new in offense.