The defining moment of Nikola Jokic’s season didn’t come Sunday night against Portland when the Serb poured in a season-high 40 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists as Denver flattened Jusuf Nurkic and the red-hot Trail Blazers. It wasn’t his perfect triple-double earlier this year against the Suns either, or when he handed out 15 assists, completely dominating the ebbs and flows of the game while only attempting 16 shots last month against the Knicks.
It came in a cramped and dreary visitor’s locker room in Phoenix after Denver’s worst loss of the season — a 102-93 drubbing at the hands of the Devin Booker-less Suns. There, Jokic stood in front of the cameras and let his teammates have it.
When asked if the Nuggets came into that game thinking they were going to win going away because of the record disparity between the two sides, Jokic went in.
“I didn’t have that feeling,” he said. “I knew it was going to be a tough game. … I expected us to lose, not because we were loose, but we didn’t play the right way.”
“We played their record, not their personnel.”
Jokic didn’t put anyone on blast like some of the league’s stars will do if they want to get a certain message across to the rest of their locker room. He didn’t name names. But Jokic was pissed off with how his teammates played in Denver’s loss in Phoenix, and it showed. He knows the Nuggets can’t have nights like that, games where they underestimate opponents like the Suns if they want to accomplish their lofty goals this season. That was last year’s Denver Nuggets, the team that lost to the Hawks and then those same Suns in a nine-day span. Not this year’s group.
So it was impressive, noteworthy, meaningful, whatever adjective you want to assign to this Nuggets win, that Jokic backed up his pointed postgame comments with one of the most remarkable performances of his career. In Phoenix, he talked the talk. Two nights later against the well-rested Trail Blazers, who held practice Friday at the Nuggets’ second-floor auxiliary gym while Denver was getting set to play in Phoenix 850 miles due southwest, he walked the walk.
“When he signed that contract, he understood heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Michael Malone said. “There’s going to be much asked of him now that he’s our franchise player. And he hasn’t shied away from that. He’s gotten so much more comfortable with being vocal. It’s easy to be vocal when things are going well. Hey, we’re winning five in a row. But when you can be vocal after a tough loss when you can be vocal in a huddle and get on guys, hold them accountable. That’s real growth. And I love seeing that from him because we need that from him. He is our franchise player, all eyes are on him at all times and he’s embraced that.”
Ask around Pepsi Center and you’ll hear first-hand account about how Denver’s franchise center is getting more comfortable with his voice. Jokic, according to multiple people who were present at the Nuggets’ practice gym throughout the summer months, was one of the biggest trash-talkers in Denver’s spirited intrasquad 5-on-5 games in the lead-up to training camp. He’s talking more than ever on defense too, taking cues from rookie center Thomas Welsh, the most vocal of the Nuggets’ big men.
As evident by his comments in Phoenix, that chatter extends into the locker room. Jokic is learning to hold his teammates accountable in his own way. But if you’re wanting him to deliver a tour de force Jimmy Butler style, stop.
“I’m not doing that,” Jokic said in response to a question about if he’s grown more comfortable challenging his teammates. “I’m not challenging nobody. If they don’t want to get better, how am I going to help them? Just to yell at them? In Serbia, challenging is yelling at you. That’s not the same thing.”
Jokic was in a special kind of rhythm against Portland in Denver’s 116-113 victory. You know, the one where he’s moving up and down the floor as gracefully as his 250-pound frame will allow him to, conducting Denver’s offense into a silky harmonic melody. Jamal Murray is the Nuggets’ frontman, grabbing headlines and bickering with rivals. Paul Millsap is on bass, providing the backbone to Denver’s offense and defense. When healthy, Gary Harris is the Nuggets’ rhythm guitarist. Will Barton is on drums. Jokic, well he’s Mozart.
When Jokic is in one of those zones, you’re terrified to glance at your Twitter timeline for even a split second in fear of missing another chart-topping hit. Jokic could have won a Grammy for his third-quarter act, scoring 15 points on a perfect 6-6 shooting, to go with two rebounds and five assists, putting together a stat line in just 12 minutes of work that most big men couldn’t post in a 48-minute game.
He went at Nurkic early and often, including on the Nuggets’ first possession of the game and drew a foul on the Bosnian. Nurkic would commit four more personal fouls Sunday, a central theme to the Nuggets’ 29th win of the season, where Nurkic’s penchant for picking up ticky-tacky whistles limited him to just 25 minutes of action.
The Nuggets still sits atop the Western Conference, a half-game clear of the Golden State Warriors, who conveniently come to Pepsi Center Tuesday in a high-stakes showdown 5,280 feet above sea level in an arena that some have fashioned as the Devil’s Court, for how little success opponents have had there. With their win over the Trail Blazers — Denver’s fifth game in seven nights — the undermanned Nuggets, who are still working Barton into their rotation and were without Harris for a fourth-straight game, have amassed an NBA-best 18-3 record at home. They’re not slowing down, especially Jokic who credits a detailed offseason endurance program for having the stamina to play 37 minutes 24 hours after logging 34 in the Nuggets’ loss to the Suns.
“For me, to be honest, there cannot be fatigue. (We’re through) just half of the season,” Jokic said. “I think I did a really good job this summer, and most of the guys did a good job this summer, so fatigue cannot be an excuse, and we cannot mention fatigue.”
He probably worked on some aspects of his game this summer too and for his efforts, Jokic has earned a spot at this season’s Most Valuable Player table where the Joker sits alongside Giannis, Harden, LeBron and Steph. But even more impressive than another MVP-like performance against the Trail Blazers was that the 23-year-old proved his talk ain’t cheap.
“He’s taken tremendous leaps in that area, and I’m so proud of him for that,” Barton said. … “We know he’s never going to be the biggest talker in the world, but him stepping up and saying things in moments when we need to hear it. It’s big for us.”
