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Team is still confident despite loss

Steve Blake, Special to the Rocky

Published April 30, 2007 at midnight

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Nuggets starting point guard Steve Blake is averaging 7.3 points, 5.7 assists and 3.0 rebounds in Denver's first three playoff games against the San Antonio Spurs. He has agreed to share his thoughts and insights throughout the best-of-seven series.

Having a baby boy in the house makes it difficult to sleep sometimes, but I can't blame my son Nicholas for the restless night I had after Game 3 Saturday.

Similar to Game 2 in San Antonio, we did a lot of good things offensively and defensively, but we had a couple of lapses that made the difference between winning and losing.

It's impossible not to take the game home with you. Laying in bed, plays just run over and over in your mind, and it's really hard to fall asleep. I was awake until about 2:30 or 3 o'clock before I finally dozed off. There's so much adrenaline pumping through your body during the game that my mind was still racing four or five hours later.

Most of the replays that went through my head were plays that I was involved in. The little things bug me sometimes, like missing my assignment on a box-out that prevented us from getting a rebound, stuff like that.

There's also something to be said for moving forward.

I was up by about 8 o'clock Sunday morning, and my wife, Kristen, prepared a great breakfast of eggs, cereal and fruit before I headed back to the arena to watch game film with the team.

Kristen's always been great like that, taking care of me. She and Nicholas were in San Antonio for the first two games of the series, but they'll stay home when we leave town for Game 5. That gives me extra incentive to get a win tonight and ensure that there will be a Game 6 in Denver on Friday.

Game 4 is huge for us. Being down 2-1 isn't too bad, but if you get down 3-1, it's going to be really tough to beat San Antonio three games in a row.

We're still confident we can win the series, but losing Game 3 was a little more frustrating than losing Game 2. It's the first time we're down in the series, so the comfort level isn't the same. We really have to take care of business now and get that good feeling back in the locker room.

After we beat the Spurs on their home court in Game 1, they came back strong in Game 2. Hopefully, we can respond the same way.

I know this much: A win tonight will help me sleep a whole lot better.