Oklahoma City Thunder: 3 takeaways from Game 1 vs. Blazers

3. A familiar face comes back to haunt Thunder

Center Jusuf Nurkic was having a pretty good season for the Blazers during the regular season. In 72 games, he posted averages of 15.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.4 blocks per contest, shot a career best of 50.8 percent from the floor and posted 36 double-doubles.

Unfortunately for Portland, he went down with a season-ending injury on March 26, leaving the team to ponder who would step up to fill the absence created by his departure.

Unfortunately, for Oklahoma City, the answer to this question was none other than Enes Kanter, who spent nearly three seasons with the team.

Kanter had a huge night against his former team, to say the least. He scored 20 points to go along with an astounding 18 rebounds, including seven offensive boards. Kanter also recorded two blocks and finished as a +18, which was the highest plus/minus rating of any player on either side.

"“He gave us a lot of toughness inside,” Terry Stotts told ESPN.  “Obviously, his rebounding and scoring. I thought his conditioning was really good. He maintained a high level of play for a long period of time.”"

In just his ninth career playoff game, Kanter became just the third Blazers player to score at least 20 points and pull down 18 rebounds. On the heels of this outstanding performance, the Thunder will need to find a way to limit his impact the rest of the way.