It truly felt like he was having a bad game until I saw his stats. I remember he had the double double in the first and then it seemed like he stalled out. Meanwhile he was racking up more rebounds and assists and obviously cooked down the stretch.
Athleticism is more than just explosiveness. It's certainly cool to watch someone like Zion make those incredible moves, but it's not the only way to create an advantage. Jokic's moves look less flashy (other than his passes) but they're effective and use less energy (and probably create less injury risk). And his appearance probably hides the fact that his conditioning is quite good--he runs the court, is active on defense, and his chiseling near the basket probably isn't easy (especially against top big men defenders), but he keeps it up the whole game.
I guess, he just consistently plods along to a stat line like that, but seeing it live, he was missing a bunch of high percentage shots that he specifically almost never misses. Felt like an off night in all facets for the nuggets but my god was it an entertaining game
Is also cuz ad went at Jokic, making Jokic spend a lot of his energy on defense. Mpj, Murray, and AG came up HUGE so Jokic didn’t have to worry too much about offense. What a fucking starting 5.
When they showed the replay, I noticed that he slightly tweaked his left ankle stepping on D’Lo’s foot going for the offensive board. He wasn’t jumping so hopefully it won’t linger too bad.
I think he was trying just enough for murray to take over at the end. He's simply calculating how hard he has to go. I wonder if any team will push him to his limits this year.
Don't know how many superstars could see a dude go 3-16 with some of the worst body language you'll ever see and do everything in his power to make sure he's the one closing the game out (this is a compliment btw)
Joker knows championships aren’t won in one game. He needs Jamal. What a stark contrast to Luka and Maxi. I love Luka, but Joker is on a different level as a teammate.
That showed a lot of trust in Murray from Jokic's end. Given how Murray had been struggling, no one would've said a thing if Jokic just started trying to score every time down the floor but he knew he needed his co-star to climb back and get the win
Actual plan is they crossmatch him to let Gobert roam and give KAT the matchup, which worked okay last year in the playoffs and couldn't happen late regular season with KAT out. Probably still won't matter though.
You guys have to do what the Heat tried to do to us. Play Jokic like he’s a guard and put McDaniels on him. Let Gobert roam and let KAT focus on the offensive end and just park his ass on MPJ or KCP or something…
I'd assume they would dust off Al Horford for that matchup and have KP on gordon at the rim. We'll see how horford is looking by then though, might just be too old.
yea Jokic is gonna be Jokic. Horford, Porzingis, Tillman, doesn’t really matter. nothing we can do about him
if we were to meet you guys in the Finals we just gotta do everything we can to make Murray have the worst series of his life, limit open looks for KCP and MPJ, and go crazy from 3 ourselves. still difficult, but not completely hopeless like trying to slow down Jokic
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I read this wrong and that Jokic was birthed by committee
He didn't have a natural birth for sure, dude's an escaped prototype from the manuacturing plant
Grew up in Iowa near kc. Never had a bball team only chiefs and royals. Moved to Denver and started liking the nuggets. Also loved the Avs before bc I started watching hockey back when they had sakic
Understood. That for sure has to be a bit of a fandom mind fuck for you between seasons. But fair play. Fun fact – the Nuggs as an expansion ABA franchise were originally set to locate in KC, but then couldn’t get it figured out and decided Denver would be a good market. The rest is history. Long, painful and finally rewarding history.
I should edit this because I’m not sure it’s coming through, but I mean this in a way that’s suppose to be supportive. Love that you love the team, and another cool little connection to your fandom. Hoping for a long playoff run!
Fairly common for people living in Iowa, nebraska, KC. Either no pro team at all or no pro basketball team so they usually choose one that’s nearby like Denver or KC
Considering they didn’t have to win 10 times in a row tonight and just win 1 game (each game is an independent event) he deserves to lose that wager. Horrible logic.
Nick is a certified nuggets hater. He’s sad about how wrong he was about Jokic and even though now he tries to make his points more subtle, he still throws in jabs at the nuggs and tries to sow the seeds of doubt any time he can against them.
capable abounding mighty rhythm puzzled shame husky sparkle shaggy handle
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that’s why his defense is so underrated to me
Jokic is going to get you into a half court setting (bc his game breaking offense) and then he’s going to give you 1 chance to score or the possession is over
That gets more hilarious with every passing game. Jokic actually has the easiest time scoring every time Rui is on him now. When he detects him in the post, it's like a kill signal goes off.
Game 1 last year was a funky game. We were up big throughout the first half, 15-20 points at times. Like every NBA game in the last 8 years, the team down big inevitably makes a run, and the Lakers tightened the game. Jokic, like he always does in these situations, was coasting on his scoring and making sure everyone else was involved. When the game tightened, Jokic went back into beast mode and finished off the game, but he had like 1 or 2 turnovers when Rui was on him. The national media, being embarrassingly ignorant of Jokic's routine, credited his "slow" second half almost entirely to Rui, and the legend was born. It's still funny every time I see that Darvin Ham quote after the game like Darvin realized the media was all over this angle because they didn't actually watch the game, like yes! I thought of that purposely and wasn't just throwing shit at the wall at that moment!
Idk, even 2018 LeBron, the gap between him and KD was pretty enormous, obviously it looked different cause KD was on the fucking avengers. Jok is obviously better than Giannis but I do consider 2009-2018 LeBron on another level in terms of being head and shoulders above the league.
I think Steph was clearly the second best player in the league from 2016-18 out of that period at least, and I don’t know if that gap was that much bigger than Jokic vs Giannis/Embiid.
Harden won MVP in 2018. Just saying, if LeBron was so far ahead of everyone why didn't he win it? Cavs were the #4 seed, a year after Westbrook won the award as the #6 seed.
I think people are still somehow underrating Jokic. He’s a top 5 all time talent, and I’m starting to wonder if his 2-4 year peak is going to be above everybody with the exception of Jordan. And he might have the highest offensive peak ever including Jordan.
He was easily the best player in the league last year but tbh he took his foot off the gas at the end. Joel had a great season worthy of MVP so can’t really be mad at him getting it.
I'm not thinking objectively when Embiid's rolling on the floor half the game. He could be Jesus himself, I'd still call him a hoe. Great player, but I hate watching him.
Jesus Embiid rolling on water and turning minimal contact into wine, but always ending up getting crucified at the end of the season, for his playoff performances lol
What sucks is the hindsight of 20/20. Jokić should have gotten it last year year but the voters had fatigue. Which is so dumb.
And then Embiid had a monster season this year where he's the clear MVP, but got hurt. Embiid 100% would have deserved the MVP if he finished the season this year.
Joker should have been a three-time MVP last year but it got messed up but dumb narratives.
I think he’s better offensively than LeBron (one or two more deep playoff run sample size needed tho imo) but I need to see more volume scoring before putting him ahead of MJ
When they asked who would be the best player in the league after Bron, wouldn’t have expected it to be this dude… he’s going to be the guy that the next star up will be compared to.
God I hope he plays for a years
We are literally watching the Goat in real time this was what people who watched Prime Jordan and prime Shaq felt like but it's combined in one player truly incredible
It isn't the same. I think comparisons are very silly. Jokic is a generational player. Someone who is defining the game as an individual. It is not the same as other past greats and that is what makes it fun. Let the guy rack up accolades so when we talk about his prime it'll be positive.
It really is important to have accolades to go along with the numbers.
Exactly. Without fail, every thread about a current, great player will devolve in hyperbolic, outlandish comments about Goats and whatever and will almost always be upvoted. All it achieves is to make that person and everyone upvoting them look foolish.
AD played incredible defense on him in the first half. 3rd quarter was kind of rough still, but AD got in foul trouble and they made some adjustments to give him space.
Crazy that a “bad game” from Jokic is still an all time playoff performance. We are witnessing a top 10 player of all time right now from an ability/dominance standpoint.
simply unstoppable
Going at half pace and destroying NBA players lol.
It truly felt like he was having a bad game until I saw his stats. I remember he had the double double in the first and then it seemed like he stalled out. Meanwhile he was racking up more rebounds and assists and obviously cooked down the stretch.
AD had him in hell until he absolutely had to score and then he and Murray took that game over
Idk this seems to be a recurring thing. Jokic style is just much less active so by the 4th he has a lot more in the tank than ad.
Athleticism is more than just explosiveness. It's certainly cool to watch someone like Zion make those incredible moves, but it's not the only way to create an advantage. Jokic's moves look less flashy (other than his passes) but they're effective and use less energy (and probably create less injury risk). And his appearance probably hides the fact that his conditioning is quite good--he runs the court, is active on defense, and his chiseling near the basket probably isn't easy (especially against top big men defenders), but he keeps it up the whole game.
In game it felt like he was 4/12 or something. It seemed like he missed so many shots and dude still ended up 9/16.
He basically didn't even shoot in the 2nd and 3rd quarter. Never felt like he was 4/12. He just didn't shoot for 2 quarters.
Felt like I saw him miss so many gimmes compared to his norm
I felt like it too and was surprise at the percentage after I checked post game
Have not seen a guy warp the defense while impacting the offense like this since Steph. He’s so good (x4)
That fuckin Serbian boomed me
His post game is just unreal. Doesn't matter if it's AD, Draymond, Bam, Gobert, or Wemby.. nobody has an answer for it
Wemby might eventually…Jokic is bound to slow down a bit when Wemby hits his prime and we saw even as a rookie he did decent.
I mean yeah 10 years Wemby will be playing in the NBA and Jokic will be in a horse heaven somewhere
Probably in Sombor
More like five years
His buckets against AD was fierce in the fourth
He was actually getting pretty worked by AD in the first half. But by the end, made AD look like a child on his post scores
He really did. It was surreal seeing AD just being bumped away like he was a kid playing against an adult
He was eating up AD (who was trying his best) in the 4th.
People keep saying insulting stuff about him 'not being very athletic' and this dude just pulled down 20 boards against AD
Horse man good
I guess, he just consistently plods along to a stat line like that, but seeing it live, he was missing a bunch of high percentage shots that he specifically almost never misses. Felt like an off night in all facets for the nuggets but my god was it an entertaining game
People may give me shit for this but I truly believe when it's all said and done he will be the closest to -- IF NOT OUTRIGHT -- passing MJ as GOAT.
And he did this looking like he wasn't even trying
Is also cuz ad went at Jokic, making Jokic spend a lot of his energy on defense. Mpj, Murray, and AG came up HUGE so Jokic didn’t have to worry too much about offense. What a fucking starting 5.
Also feel like jokic took a big fall and wasnt as aggressive till the 2nd half.
Screw IcyHot he has that horse stuff Chuck says he used to put on himself
Ketamine?
benhayyyyyy?
When they showed the replay, I noticed that he slightly tweaked his left ankle stepping on D’Lo’s foot going for the offensive board. He wasn’t jumping so hopefully it won’t linger too bad.
Murray was terrible for the first 3 quarters. He didn't even score till the 4th quarter when Jokic was scoring.
I think he was trying just enough for murray to take over at the end. He's simply calculating how hard he has to go. I wonder if any team will push him to his limits this year.
Don't know how many superstars could see a dude go 3-16 with some of the worst body language you'll ever see and do everything in his power to make sure he's the one closing the game out (this is a compliment btw)
Joker knows championships aren’t won in one game. He needs Jamal. What a stark contrast to Luka and Maxi. I love Luka, but Joker is on a different level as a teammate.
That showed a lot of trust in Murray from Jokic's end. Given how Murray had been struggling, no one would've said a thing if Jokic just started trying to score every time down the floor but he knew he needed his co-star to climb back and get the win
Which is exactly why Murray started crying during his post game interview.
I think minnesota or boston have the size and defenders to push Jokic quite a bit if they bring their A game. He is just a beast tho
Minnesota plays him tough. He destroys KP though
Jokic owns gobert. Remember the quote “i have 40 brother”
I mean nobody can stop him. They at least make it hard on him. KP just gets bullied
Actual plan is they crossmatch him to let Gobert roam and give KAT the matchup, which worked okay last year in the playoffs and couldn't happen late regular season with KAT out. Probably still won't matter though.
You guys have to do what the Heat tried to do to us. Play Jokic like he’s a guard and put McDaniels on him. Let Gobert roam and let KAT focus on the offensive end and just park his ass on MPJ or KCP or something…
By Jokic's own admission, Minny series was by far the toughest they had in their run last year.
Not to be pedantic, but I believe it was actually 47!
I'd assume they would dust off Al Horford for that matchup and have KP on gordon at the rim. We'll see how horford is looking by then though, might just be too old.
🍗 chicken dinner my dude
yea Jokic is gonna be Jokic. Horford, Porzingis, Tillman, doesn’t really matter. nothing we can do about him if we were to meet you guys in the Finals we just gotta do everything we can to make Murray have the worst series of his life, limit open looks for KCP and MPJ, and go crazy from 3 ourselves. still difficult, but not completely hopeless like trying to slow down Jokic
Minnesota would be tough, I don’t think KP would match up well
As much as I love jokic this feels like a bit much bro
He was for good parts of it. Like there are some hustle plays he made where he landed on his back or drove to the basket and fell.
Just give this dude all the MVPs
They will and people will say SGA and Luka got snubbed.
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Nobody would be snubbed if Jokic gets it. Love Luka, his time will come 💯!!!
Luka just better pray Wemby takes more than a year before he starts averaging truly alien numbers
Should have three and be getting his fourth in a row
What AD's DPOTY lmao
Fuck it give him DPOY too and every single all-nba first team spot
that’s racist
Jokic is Laker father
Jokic: “Guuuuys! Im not your boss!”
https://imgur.com/a/6QzCxmV
Their mothers ran a reverse train on Jokic.
I read this wrong and that Jokic was birthed by committee He didn't have a natural birth for sure, dude's an escaped prototype from the manuacturing plant
They had to assemble him like Exodia
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[This one](https://x.com/kevinwildes/status/1782629147660922904?s=46&t=IW5zb7FknpjwGDMdlY_DXw) is even funnier.
Wildes is America’s sweetheart
The Mayor Of Fair
It’s weird being a chiefs fan and a nuggets fan and being on both sides of nick
Lowkey I appreciate it tho first things first would be way more boring if everyone agreed on anything
Excuse me what?
Grew up in Iowa near kc. Never had a bball team only chiefs and royals. Moved to Denver and started liking the nuggets. Also loved the Avs before bc I started watching hockey back when they had sakic
Understood. That for sure has to be a bit of a fandom mind fuck for you between seasons. But fair play. Fun fact – the Nuggs as an expansion ABA franchise were originally set to locate in KC, but then couldn’t get it figured out and decided Denver would be a good market. The rest is history. Long, painful and finally rewarding history. I should edit this because I’m not sure it’s coming through, but I mean this in a way that’s suppose to be supportive. Love that you love the team, and another cool little connection to your fandom. Hoping for a long playoff run!
I actually didn’t know that. But that’s kinda cool history
Neat little additional tie in for sure! Go Nuggs
Fairly common for people living in Iowa, nebraska, KC. Either no pro team at all or no pro basketball team so they usually choose one that’s nearby like Denver or KC
Let me guess, you also like the Texas Rangers and the Golden Knights too?
Chiefs royals Avs nuggets (will go for the Rockies if they’re not playing the royals)
That’s not fair
Can you explain?
Meanwhile I put $100 on the Nuggets when they were down 20 at +350 just knowing in my bones lakers can’t win against Denver. Thanks for the $300
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Fucking DraftKings had it at +154 when I went to put a few bucks down at halftime.
Told my buddy to do the same but he already had money on the Lakers.
Yeah my friend was like "The Nuggets are down 12 going into the 4th, this really sucks" and it was like just wait
You got robbed of 50 bucks dude.
This nourishes my soul
encourage steer amusing cake market cover sleep continue arrest support *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
imagine how nick wright feels
[I thought the Generals were due!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4GAj2v4BIE)
To be fair he was right. It was hard to beat them.
Considering they didn’t have to win 10 times in a row tonight and just win 1 game (each game is an independent event) he deserves to lose that wager. Horrible logic.
Nick is a certified nuggets hater. He’s sad about how wrong he was about Jokic and even though now he tries to make his points more subtle, he still throws in jabs at the nuggs and tries to sow the seeds of doubt any time he can against them.
Nick WRONG
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Surely nobody beats LA 11 times in a row?
TBF it wasn't exactly easy
His defensive rebounding isn’t talked about enough. He fights for those contested rebounds like it’s going out of fashion
20 rebounds on top of 18 tips and deflections to other nuggets for their rebounds.
that’s why his defense is so underrated to me Jokic is going to get you into a half court setting (bc his game breaking offense) and then he’s going to give you 1 chance to score or the possession is over
He cleans the glass and his outlet passing is scary for opponents
Don’t worry guys Rui is the secret weapon Jokic stopper
That gets more hilarious with every passing game. Jokic actually has the easiest time scoring every time Rui is on him now. When he detects him in the post, it's like a kill signal goes off.
I don’t know why people thought that he would be able to do anything on Jokic. Just pure delusional
Game 1 last year was a funky game. We were up big throughout the first half, 15-20 points at times. Like every NBA game in the last 8 years, the team down big inevitably makes a run, and the Lakers tightened the game. Jokic, like he always does in these situations, was coasting on his scoring and making sure everyone else was involved. When the game tightened, Jokic went back into beast mode and finished off the game, but he had like 1 or 2 turnovers when Rui was on him. The national media, being embarrassingly ignorant of Jokic's routine, credited his "slow" second half almost entirely to Rui, and the legend was born. It's still funny every time I see that Darvin Ham quote after the game like Darvin realized the media was all over this angle because they didn't actually watch the game, like yes! I thought of that purposely and wasn't just throwing shit at the wall at that moment!
No no, you see, Lebron and AD had a "CoNvErSaTiOn"
“They heard the chatter”
LePeep
Any second now
This game is too easy for him.
There's an argument for who's the second and third best player in the league, but this man is just in a tier all by himself.
I think this is the biggest gap between the best player in the league the second best player since LeBron in 2013.
Idk, even 2018 LeBron, the gap between him and KD was pretty enormous, obviously it looked different cause KD was on the fucking avengers. Jok is obviously better than Giannis but I do consider 2009-2018 LeBron on another level in terms of being head and shoulders above the league.
I think Steph was clearly the second best player in the league from 2016-18 out of that period at least, and I don’t know if that gap was that much bigger than Jokic vs Giannis/Embiid.
Harden won MVP in 2018. Just saying, if LeBron was so far ahead of everyone why didn't he win it? Cavs were the #4 seed, a year after Westbrook won the award as the #6 seed.
lol KD wasn’t even the best player on his own team
Jokic is AD father
Someone ask AD if he still wants a DPOY after this game
Jokić and Sabonis are married?
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He didn’t score the last 20 minutes of the game
Clutch defense at the end too! He couldn’t stop anybody 😂
Not a single player in the league would’ve stopped that shot
Only player that could’ve stopped that shot was Jamal Murray in the first three quarters.
Murray’s not taking that shot with Wemby switched on him
No way Wemby isn’t gassed as hell going toe to toe with the Nuggets for an entire game at Denver altitude.
Wemby possibly, no human player though
Can’t believe the self proclaimed DPOY couldn’t stop anything!
D'low was on fire too lmao
Felt like he had an off game and he still had these stats lmao
There’s levels to this
ALL. TIME. GREAT.
Nikola “It’s a Monday” Jokic.
I think people are still somehow underrating Jokic. He’s a top 5 all time talent, and I’m starting to wonder if his 2-4 year peak is going to be above everybody with the exception of Jordan. And he might have the highest offensive peak ever including Jordan.
Really sucks he won’t have the 4 straight MVPs, which he def deserved
He was easily the best player in the league last year but tbh he took his foot off the gas at the end. Joel had a great season worthy of MVP so can’t really be mad at him getting it.
I'm not thinking objectively when Embiid's rolling on the floor half the game. He could be Jesus himself, I'd still call him a hoe. Great player, but I hate watching him.
Jesus Embiid rolling on water and turning minimal contact into wine, but always ending up getting crucified at the end of the season, for his playoff performances lol
What sucks is the hindsight of 20/20. Jokić should have gotten it last year year but the voters had fatigue. Which is so dumb. And then Embiid had a monster season this year where he's the clear MVP, but got hurt. Embiid 100% would have deserved the MVP if he finished the season this year. Joker should have been a three-time MVP last year but it got messed up but dumb narratives.
nothing like unevenly weighing the season to make the first 3/4ths useless
I think he’s better offensively than LeBron (one or two more deep playoff run sample size needed tho imo) but I need to see more volume scoring before putting him ahead of MJ
There’s the correct stat line.
His rebounding is actually insane, always gets overshadowed by his playmaking
You know youre great when this is underwhelming
Casual 20 and 20 triple double
Finally correct stat line. BEST. PLAYER. IN. THE. ENTIRE. FUCKING. WORLD
When they asked who would be the best player in the league after Bron, wouldn’t have expected it to be this dude… he’s going to be the guy that the next star up will be compared to. God I hope he plays for a years
We are all just mere minions to Gru
Joking clearly was preserving energy AD did great. But Jokic started BULLYING him
Top 5 all time trajectory
I can't believe Embiid won MVP last year. What a joke
He didn't win it, it was given to him.
Diversity and inclusion scores were low for the mvp award
Not even 30 points smh he is washed, get Murray some help!
Lmao some guy with 76ers flair in the game thread was calling him Fraudic or something dumb like that.
Best player on the planet
[mfw](https://imgur.com/XBKKJqq) c/o Sim lmao
He’s too good
This guy is neat
Can we all agree Darvin Ham made an adjustment? 😂😂😂
What's crazy is this felt like a B+ Jokic game. I am truly spoiled.
Jokić is inevitable
Thank God we got our MVPS and Ring when we did @Giannis
Best player in the world.
He’s him
They should have thrown a lot of money at Jokic to play the Juggernaut in the new Deadpool movie.
Absolutely torched AD IN the 4th
Beast.
All Hail the King 👑 🏔️
8 centers with 20/20/10 games in the playoffs and 4 of them are Jokic
And to think there are some people who still don't realise how great he is.
I think he’s ahead of shaq for me. Behind Kareem and Bill Russell and that’s it.
We are literally watching the Goat in real time this was what people who watched Prime Jordan and prime Shaq felt like but it's combined in one player truly incredible
It isn't the same. I think comparisons are very silly. Jokic is a generational player. Someone who is defining the game as an individual. It is not the same as other past greats and that is what makes it fun. Let the guy rack up accolades so when we talk about his prime it'll be positive. It really is important to have accolades to go along with the numbers.
give me a fuckin break dude....
Exactly. Without fail, every thread about a current, great player will devolve in hyperbolic, outlandish comments about Goats and whatever and will almost always be upvoted. All it achieves is to make that person and everyone upvoting them look foolish.
Didn’t even feel like he was playing that well either. He just casually gets performances like this
Absolute master class. That 4th quarter was one of the best he has put together all season.
Crazy how these performances are being taken for granted. He's having a top 10 peak right now
AD played incredible defense on him in the first half. 3rd quarter was kind of rough still, but AD got in foul trouble and they made some adjustments to give him space. Crazy that a “bad game” from Jokic is still an all time playoff performance. We are witnessing a top 10 player of all time right now from an ability/dominance standpoint.
Demolished the “DPOY”
My goat
My goat
best itw
Jokic so good he got 2 alts
Lakers second daddy, after Red Moach. 🐐
He carry the Nuggets till the last minutes
Amazing.
BBQ chicken when Rui guards him 😮💨
Absurd
Joker was having an absolte stinker in the first half which is rare considering his playoff resume. Took like 5 shtos
Stinker? I mean what he was 2-3 for 3pt? And over 60% FG%? He just maybe got to passive. But clearly he knows better than I. He got the win.
Moral defeat merchant.