"That's MVP shit": Inside Nikola Jokic's latest MVP statement

Somehow, Nikola Jokic was left wide open. He had already tallied 44 points, yet that apparently wasn’t enough for the Grizzlies. Memphis decided to let him have a crack at three more.

So there Jokic stood, alone, at the top of the three-point arc with the chance to give the Nuggets a three-point lead with under one minute remaining in double overtime. Will Barton, who drew the attention of two Grizzlies defenders on the play and flipped the ball back to Jokic, was the first to greet the big man on his way back to the sideline after Jokic’s jumper predictably went swish and Memphis called timeout.

“I said, ‘That’s MVP shit,'” Barton recalled. “That’s why you’re the MVP of the league.”

Barton, Michael Malone, and Jokic’s teammates have to stump for Denver’s basketball messiah because the kid from Sombor will never boast, brag or gloat. It’s not in his nature. It’s not his style. He’s not that type of superstar.

“It’s pretty clear he’s the MVP,” Michael Porter Jr. said.

After another Ball Arena tour de force where Jokic finished with 47 points, 15 rebounds, and 8 assists and tallied 13 of the Nuggets’ 23 points across two overtimes, he remained unconcerned with his standing in the MVP race. He couldn’t care less. He was worried about only one stat Monday: a win.

“I had a really good night,” he said. “I scored a lot. I think I had a couple stupid turnovers that I can easily fix. It was a good night for me and the team.”

I genuinely wonder if Jokic would know that he’s the heavy favorite to take home the MVP this season if he wasn’t peppered with questions about potentially winning the award after almost every game. When I asked him Monday if it’s easy to tune out the noise around the MVP race this season, he simply replied that it is. He’s the only player in the league that I’d genuinely believe if they gave that response.

“I mean it’s easy.” Jokic said. “You just don’t read it. There are a lot of players in this league playing at a really high level.”

But no one has done it as consistently as Jokic this season. And that’s why he’s the MVP. Jokic’s latest stunner came on the same night that Steph Curry and Joel Embiid dueled on national television. Curry finished with 49 points and hit 10 threes in Golden State’s win. Embiid tallied 28 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists in the loss. Both are at the top of their games, but you’re high if you’d take either over Jokic if you’re trying to win a championship this season.

Over the final 12:56 of Monday’s thriller (the last 2:56 of the fourth quarter plus two overtimes), Jokic shot 8-11 from the floor for 19 of Denver’s final 34 points as the Nuggets roared back from a nine-point deficit with three minutes remining in regulation to force OT. In the second overtime, Jokic didn’t miss. He shot 4-4 over the final five minutes of the Nuggets’ 37th win of the season, which moved Denver to within two games of the third-seeded Clippers.

Jokic had a number of standout defensive plays Monday too, including this flying cross-court closeout on a Grayson Allen three-point try that would have won it for the Grizzlies at the tail end of the fourth.

Jokic is third in the NBA this season in “clutch” field goal percentage, when the score is within five points with five minutes or less remaining behind only Russell Westbrook (55.7%) and Damian Lillard (53.4%). Jokic is shooting 52.4% from the floor in 123 “clutch” minutes this year. It’s the second-most clutch minutes logged in the league behind Chris Paul.

“There’s a lot of coaches in the NBA that say, ‘Man, I wish I had a closer.’ Well, that’s something I never wish for because we have one,” Malone said. “That guy is from Sombor, Serbia, and you know his name.”

But you also can’t write the story of this Nuggets win without crediting Barton, who was electric to open the first quarter and helped Denver close late. Barton scored the Nuggets’ first 13 points of the game, and then in the fourth and first overtime hit three clutch jumpers to help finish off the Grizzlies.

First, Barton sunk a 14-foot pull-up that came off a Jokic dribble hand-off. On the Nuggets’ next possession, Barton stepped into and sunk a catch-and-shoot triple off a Jokic post-up that trimmed the Grizzlies’ lead to two with under one minute left in the fourth.

In the first OT, Barton bounced back from a careless and nearly catastrophic turnover with one minute remaining and Memphis leading by three and swished a game-tying triple with 12 seconds on the clock. The Nuggets and Grizzlies then played another five minutes.

“They both made key, key plays to keep us afloat and ultimately win the game,” Malone said of Barton and Jokic.

In Denver’s first matchup without Monte Morris, who’s set to miss several games with a hamstring strain, it became clear that Barton would step into a now vacant late-game ball handler role. No Jamal Murray and Morris meant that the Nuggets trotted out a mishmash of lineups, some of which featured heavy doses of Vlatko Cancar and new two-way signee Shaq Harrison. That unfamiliarity contributed to a portion of Denver’s 24 turnovers Monday which resulted in 39 Memphis points.

But the Nuggets still survived to beat Grizzlies, who had won seven of their last 10. Simply put, it’s because they have the best player in the NBA. There’s no one better. There’s no one who has consistently played at this high of a level this season for this long.

Nikola Jokic proved again Monday what he’s been proving all year. He’s Denver’s Larry Bird or Tim Duncan. He’s already the best player in franchise history and at the end of this season will likely become the first second-round pick in NBA history and just the sixth international player to win MVP (Olajuwon, Duncan, Nash, Nowitzki, Antetokounmpo). He’s going to be remembered forever. If Jokic continues on this trajectory, he’s going to be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer and go down as one of the greatest players of his generation.

Cherish him. Enjoy him. Be thankful for him. You’ll probably never see a better player wear a Nuggets jersey in your lifetime.