Nikola Jokic's defensive struggles exposed in Nuggets' opening night win over Pelicans

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Anthony Davis isn’t your typical power forward.

The fifth-year pro from Kentucky can stretch the defense out to the 3-point line, take his man off the dribble and finish at the rim with a fluidity and ease that’s rarely seen in a 6-foot-11 big man. The list of players with his offensive and defensive skill-set starts with Davis and ends with Karl-Anthony Towns, another player the Nuggets will see often this season.

While Denver won’t go against a player who can do as many things on the basketball court as Davis on most nights, his 50-point, 17-rebound effort against Denver Wednesday, gave the Nuggets their first glimpse of the struggles their Balkan frontcourt has defending against athletic four-men.

Davis had his way with starting power forward Nikola Jokic throughout the first half Wednesday to the tune of 29 points on 22 shots. The Nuggets then decided to throw Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried and pretty much anything else they could find at Davis and were able to “limit” him to 22 second-half points.

Jokic is an unbelievably smart basketball player. He’s just 21-years-old, but plays like a veteran, is an underrated rim protector and usually knows where to be when rotating defensively in the paint. But against Davis, all bets are off.

Where Jokic is a solid defender is close to the rim where can use his body positioning and IQ to essentially be in the right place at the right time. When Davis lures Jokic out, just beyond the paint with the threat of his jumper, the Nuggets big man finds himself in no man’s land. He’s suddenly in too much space and is late reacting to Davis’s simple rip through. Jokic gets beat and has no choice but to foul.

Flash forward to the second half and Denver has moved Jokic off of Davis and onto Solomon Hill. Perhaps not as familiar with guarding perimeter players, Jokic is late getting out on Hill and picks up a careless foul.

Learning to guard four-men is going to take time and if Denver has to switch him off of a matchup problem like Davis and put him on a wing like they did against the Pelicans, that process will be protracted.

Here, Jokic gives unnecessary help to Emmanuel Mudiay on a Tim Frazier drive when Nurkic is already in position and then is late getting back to Hill who’s able to get off a clean look from three. Hill, misses the three but most capable wing shooters will make Jokic pay if he sluffs off them like that on a regular basis.

The most glaring and noticeable area where Jokic struggled defending the perimeter last season in limited time at the four and Wednesday against New Orleans was when he tried closing out to the 3-point line.

The Nuggets won’t go against fours as skilled as Davis every night but they’ll see a lot of big men like Towns, Al-Farouq Aminu, and Trey Lyles, three power forwards that live in the Northwest Division, who can take Jokic off the dribble. You can see Davis metaphorically lick his lips when he sees Jokic sauntering out to check him from three.

Hill and Terrance Jones followed Davis’s lead and continued to expose Jokic on the perimeter.

Coach Michael Malone is well aware that there will be growing pains if Denver decides to stick with the twin towers look up front, which Malone and general manager Tim Connelly appear willing to work through over the course of this season. Of course, there will be lineups the Nuggets face throughout the season that don’t put as much pressure on Denver’s frontcourt as the Pelicans did.

Yet, New Orleans isn’t likely a playoff team this year. They aren’t expected to have a top-15 offense and shouldn’t put as much pressure on Denver’s defense as they did.

Jokic faces an adjustment this season on offense playing alongside Nurkic, something he wasn’t able to get comfortable with over the Nuggets eight-game preseason slate or Wednesday night in New Orleans. He faces a tougher task in adjusting defensively to playing the four alongside Nurkic if Denver remains committed to playing the “Jurkic” frontcourt heavy minutes together this season.