His game matches his personality: Sweet. Sweet like say… honey? Well, that’s how Will Barton described 20 year-old rookie teammate Nikola Jokic after Denver’s most recent win over the Toronto Raptors.
Big win for the squad tonight! Total team effort! My lil bro Jokic aka Big Honey is the truth! Let’s keep it going baby #NuggetsNation
— Will Barton (@WillTheThrillB5) February 2, 2016
Big Honey. That description fits the 6-foot-10 Serbian, who is averaging 9.6 points and 5.6 rebounds for the Nuggets this season. He has an affable personality when he speaks with us media hacks and as his english comes along, so will his big personality. After a recent locker room interview Jokic joked afterward to his head coach Michael Malone, who walked into the room and up to Nikola, that his performance in it was “terrible.” You can tell that he wants to say more than he can, but he’s still searching for the right words.
Malone has been forced to search for more minutes for Jokic, who forced his way into Coach’s rotation after Malone basically said at media day that the rookie was not likely to see a ton of action this season.
“Will he get a lot of minutes this year? May be tough because we have a number of bigs in front of him,” said Malone at media day. “We’re going to try to get him as many minutes as possible.”
Not only is Jokic averaging 19.7 minutes per game — which ranks him 14th among rookies — but he has also worked his way into the starting lineup for 22 of his 47 games; and likely has cemented his spot there with his play over the course of the season. Expect to see his minutes per game increase, along with his role in the offense.
With Jokic set to play with Emmanuel Mudiay on the World Team in the Rising Stars Challenge over All-Star weekend in Toronto on Feb. 12th, let’s take a look back at 10 of Jokic’s memorable performances this season.
Rockets, Oct. 28th: Nikola Jokic’s first basket in the regular season as a Denver Nugget came in Houston. With the team up 100-84, Jokic received the ball in the post against fellow rookie Montrezl Harrell, gave Harrell the Dream Shake and scored on the right handed hook shot.
Jokic played just four minutes in his Nuggets debut, but his lone shot, and make, was a preview of what was to come.
Thunder, Nov. 1st: In just his third game, Jokic played 24 minutes and put up 8 points and 4 rebounds in OKC. We’ll highlight two plays here that showcase Jokic’s underrated movement.
Here we see Jokic complete the dribble-handoff to Will Barton, roll behind defenders Steven Adams and Kevin Durant, receive the pass back from Barton and score over Serge Ibaka.
On play two we see Jokic’s knack to tap rebounds to create extra possessions as he gets to an offensive rebound between Durant and Adams, tracks the ball down, sneaks down the baseline, uses his body to shield Adams and scores. Being a 7-footer, Jokic has been able to take advantage of big defenders out on the perimeter either by beating them off the dribble or hitting shots over them.
Spurs, Nov. 18th: In Jokic’s 11th game he hit his first NBA 3-pointer over 2015 Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard. As you will see in the video below, Leonard didn’t much bother to cover Jokic out on the 3-point line and Jokic made him pay as he had more than enough space to get his shot off.
Jokic finished the game with career highs of 23 points and 12 rebounds on 8-13 shooting (including 6-6 at the foul line and 1-1 from three) in 32 minutes of action.
Timberwolves, Dec. 11th: After spoiling Denver’s home opener the Wolves returned to town, but were in for a surprise as the Nuggets got a little revenge thanks in part to Jokic’s 19 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists.
Michael Malone is running more-and-more of Denver’s offense through Jokic out of the high post and in the following play we see why. Gary Harris has been phenomenal moving without the ball and on this play Jokic finds him after Harris loops around behind the defenders, thanks to a nice screen from Kenneth Faried and finishes at the rim.
Spurs, Dec. 26th: For whatever reason, Jokic has been deadly against the Spurs and he was at it again in this one. He finished with 22 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists in 26 minutes.
Below, Jokic is being guarded by LaMarcus Aldridge, spins baseline, throws a streaking bounce pass around David West before stepping out of bounds and finds an open Barton for the three. An incredible display of vision and accuracy on the pass and check out how Jokic and Barton are moving simultaneously. Great pass.
Pacers, Jan. 18th: Jokic finished with 18 points, 4 steals and 3 assists in a match up against fellow rookie Myles Turner (who had 25 points of his own).
In the following play Harris returns the favors he had been receiving from Jokic as he finds Nikola under the hoop for the layup. My friend, and former colleague at DenverStiffs.com, Jeff Morton took to calling Jokic Velcro in the press box because of his good hands and those hands were on display here with the pretty pass from Harris.
Pistons, Jan. 23rd: Jokic filled up the stat sheet in his first game against Andre Drummond, finishing with 17 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals in 32 minutes.
Jokic has shown the ability to hit the Dirk Nowitzki fallaway shot and he did so here against Drummond. Watch as Jokic directs Harris to clear out so he has room to operate, puts Drummond in the blender and hits the tough fallaway — no problem.
Raptors, Feb. 1st: In what is being billed as Jokic’s breakout game he set new career highs with 27 points and 14 rebounds to go along with 4 assists and 1 block in 30 minutes.
Here we see Emmanuel Mudiay drive baseline, drawing two defenders and throwing the pass back to Jokic – who was moving to the rim. Jokic grabs the pass and finishes with the layup in traffic.
Late in the third quarter Cory Joseph is covering Jokic in the post, Nikola recognizes the mismatch, spins baseline leaving Joseph in the dust and finishes the play with the jam.
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While the Raptors contest may have been Jokic’s breakout game on a national level, we can see from the plays above that he’s been having a big impact all season. In fact, when Jokic plays over 25 minutes — which has happened 11 times this season — he averages 16.1 points on 56.4 percent shooting and 8.8 rebounds. The Nuggets are just 5-6 in those games, but there is no doubt that Jokic is a player on the rise.
Stay tuned tomorrow for a look back at Emmanuel Mudiay’s 10 memorable performances. All video in this post cut by BSN Denver’s An Nguyen.
