Nikola Jokic is ready to lead Nuggets to playoffs by "playing free"

DENVER — Nikola Jokic returned from last season’s All-Star break mentally and physically fatigued.

“I’m really tired,” he said following Denver’s first practice after 2017 All-Star weekend in New Orleans where he competed in the Rising Stars and Skills Challenges. “My body is tired. I’m trying to get as much rest as I can.”

Jokic scored a combined 16 points in Denver’s three games following last year’s break. But he soon returned to form and helped the Nuggets finish within one game of the Trail Blazers for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

This year, Jokic stuck around Colorado.

Along with his two brothers, girlfriend and parents, he ventured up to the Rocky Mountains. Snowmobiling was the main activity of the weekend getaway.

“It was cold,” Jokic told BSN Denver. “But it was nice.”

Jokic came back to Denver this time around well-rested and focused on the Nuggets’ final 24 regular-season games — a closing two-month stretch where the organization could end its four-season playoff drought. Entering Thursday’s slate of games, Denver sits sixth in a jumbled Western Conference where seeds three through 10 are separated by 4 1/2 games.

Putting Denver’s playoff hopes and dreams on the back of Jokic — a former second-round pick who burst onto the NBA landscape a year ago — is unfair, even for a player of Jokic’s stature. Those responsibilities are usually reserved for more seasoned veterans who have been in their fair share of high-leverage games.

Earlier this season, Nuggets coach Michael Malone thought that pressure got to Jokic. After a two-game stretch in early January where the typically efficient Jokic scored eight points on 3-13 shooting against the Jazz and eight points again on 3-10 shooting in Sacramento, Malone counseled his big man.

The results were positive. Jokic rebounded to post a triple-double; 22 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists two nights later versus the Warriors. Although Jokic and the Nuggets experienced their fair share of ups and downs over the next month, Denver played its best basketball of the season in the final 12 games before the All-Star break.

Jokic posted All-NBA worthy averages of 19.4 points on better than 50 percent shooting from the field and 46 percent from three, 11.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists over that stretch as Denver went 9-3. The stress-free Jokic turned in four of his five best individual performances of the season over those 12 games, according to BSN Denver’s in-house DPR metric.

“Because we’re playing really good right now, I don’t feel any pressure,” Jokic said. “I want to just go play. I want to play games, I want to get better. I think my whole team wants to do that.”

It’s not just Jokic. As a team, the Nuggets are clicking on offense. Denver is leading the league in scoring over the past month and has the second-best offense.

The Nuggets’ 134-123 win over the Bucks on the Thursday before All-Star weekend was the pinnacle of Denver’s recent offensive eruption. The Nuggets handed out 37 assists on 45 made baskets, 17 of which came via Jokic, which marked a new career high.

“We are playing free,” Jokic said of Denver’s recent success. “We are just doing whatever we want to do and that’s good for us. No offense is really good offense for us.”

Denver is far from assured a spot in the postseason. The Nuggets have a difficult closing schedule with 13 of their remaining 24 games on the road. Denver’s matchups at Pepsi Center aren’t layups either. The Nuggets’ next three home games are against the Spurs on Friday, the Rockets on Sunday and Clippers on Tuesday.

The Nuggets will welcome Mason Plumlee back into the fold on Friday and Paul Millsap a couple weeks after that. Both will improve Denver’s defense, which has gone into a nosedive in 2018 and is the league’s fourth-worst since Jan. 1.

The defense could and will likely improve with Plumlee and Millsap, but Jokic, who’s the engine of Denver’s attack will be why the Nuggets either break their four-year playoff drought or head towards another lottery appearance.

“I think it would mean improvement,” Jokic said when asked what making the playoffs would signify. “My first year we got 30 wins. My second year we got 40. We have 32 right now, so just improvement. Going to the playoffs, it would mean the whole team is improving and the whole team is getting better. Everybody on this team wants to go there and everybody’s going to work for that.”