The Dankest Crossword Clues You Can Get
A happenstance NBA matchup led to a crisscross of clues that were too good to pass up.
Rebecca Tulis
When I saw that the Portland Trail Blazers and the Denver Nuggets were paired in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, theme wires crossed in my brain. Blazers...Nuggets...hey, those both have marijuana-related meanings. And they're both seven letters, so offset each other perfectly in the grid. It became last Tuesday's puzzle.
Before I started the grid, though, I wanted to see how well-known this amusing little coincidence was. Certainly I couldn't be the first person in the world to notice it, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't *too* famous so solvers didn't think I'd just cribbed it.
Of course it's a big world out there, and this stony pairing had indeed been noticed before, to amusing effect. Here's a sample:
Portland Mercury headline from a 2016 game: Blazers Smoke Nuggets, 112-105 . Opening paragraph:
"I'll admit I've been waiting some time for a chance to use that "Blazers Smoke Nuggets" headline, and now that time has finally come. Our hometown Blazers did indeed smoke some tasty Nuggets on an early Sunday night game at the Moda Center. It was a somewhat sloppy effort, to be honest, but a super dank 3rd quarter comeback helped the Blazers put away a team with which they shouldn't have had as many problems as they did"
Turns out fans have long loved this particular matchup.
An excerpt:
The SuperChronic Cafe is putting on a VIP event as part of the basketball game between the Portland Trailblazers and the Denver Nuggets. This is my favorite match up in the NBA because people always bring shirts and signs to the game that say ‘Blaze those Nuggets!.’ There was one segment on the jumbo tron at one of the games where they kept putting people holding those signs on the screen, the crowd went absolutely wild with each one, all culminating with someone wearing a ‘I blaze Nuggets’ shirt on and the crowd absolutely lost it. I love Portland.
So it turns out I got scooped on that theme by our friends in the Pacific Northwest. Can't win 'em all.
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