Nikola Jokic should be dead tired now. He should be completely out of gas.
There are three games left in the regular season. Without Jamal Murray for the entire year and Michael Porter Jr. for most of it, Jokic has carried the Nuggets on his back for the last five months. In every game. On every single night.
But somehow, he keeps gaining steam. On the cusp of his second-straight MVP, Jokic somehow isn’t slowing down.
Jokic laid down a dominant 38-point, 18-rebound, 6-assist, 3-steal, 2-block stat line in the Nuggets’ 129-118 win over the Lakers on Sunday. The victory put Denver’s magic number to avoid the play-in at two games with three regular-season matchups to go.
It was the fifth-straight absolute banger from Jokic during a stretch where the Nuggets have managed to go 4-1 without playing anything close to their best basketball. Again, after five months of traveling the NBA as a one-man band, Jokic is still playing the best shows of his 2021-22 tour.
“I’m just glad that we are winning,” he said.
Nikola Jokic's last 5 games (Nuggets go 4-1):
– 38 points, 18 rebounds, 6 assists
– 38 points, 19 rebounds, 8 assists
– 37 points, 13 rebounds, 9 assists
– 26 points, 19 rebounds, 11 assists
– 35 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) April 3, 2022
It’s been one of the most dominant stretches of his career. And on Sunday, Jokic finished off Anthony Davis and the Lakers with his defense.
After checking in at the 6:25 mark of the fourth quarter with the Nuggets leading 106-104, Jokic led a 23-14 Nuggets run over the rest of regulation to close out the Lakers. During that stretch, Davis, who was hobbled at times by a sore foot during the second half, scored zero points on 0-4 shooting when guarded by Jokic.
Overall, the Nuggets held the Lakers to 24 points on 35% shooting in the fourth.
“When it mattered most, we were able to get stops,” Michael Malone said.
This strip against Dwight Howard with under six minutes ago that eventually led to a Lakers take foul and a Jokic basket on Denver’s next possession was another great defensive play.
What Jokic has had to do for the Nuggets this season is incredibly unfair, and it’s also a key reason why he likely locked up his second-straight MVP Sunday. There’s still one week left in the regular season and Denver has three games remaining. Narratives can shift quickly, as we know. But it looks like the Nuggets are going to stay out of the play-in, which should be the go-ahead that most voters need to lock in Jokic at their No. 1 spot.
So much is asked of Jokic every single night. If he doesn’t deliver an A-level game, the Nuggets are going to lose. That’s just a fact. If he does, Denver still needs at least two role players to deliver really strong performances to walk away with a W.
That’s what Aaron Gordon and Will Barton provided against the Lakers. Gordon tallied 24 points, 8 rebounds and shot 3-5 from 3-point range. Over his last 10 games, Gordon’s shooting a blistering 15-32 (46.9%) from distance. Barton bounced back from one of his worst games in a Nuggets jersey against Minnesota to pour in 25 points on 6-8 shooting from 3. Earlier Sunday morning, Nuggets team doctors didn’t think Barton would play, but he battled through right knee soreness to deliver a clutch performance.
“I was real close (to not playing), but we’ve still got some ground to make up,” Barton said. “I just wanted to give it my best, go out there and compete, and stay out of the play-in.”
It was the exact type of game that Denver needed from Barton, Gordon, and Denver’s bench, which also played well and provided a needed boost, to win in the playoffs.
