If there’s anything the Nuggets’ loss to the Spurs the other day proves, it’s that even Nikola Jokic can have an off night. Given how close the set-to was, the hosts needed him to be at his best, which — as his three Michael Jordan Trophies in the last four years underscore — would have had him putting up outstanding numbers with uncanny efficiency. Instead, he wound up sullying his 42-18-9-2 output by chucking a ridiculously high 36 field goal attempts, and making only 15 of them, in 42 minutes. That he missed from three-point territory and then made a bad pass in the last two plays of the blue and yellow (not counting Michael Porter, Jr.’s desperate heave at the buzzer) served to add insult to injury.
To be sure, the Nuggets have been compelled to run just about every single offensive set through Jokic to make the most of their uneven roster, and especially with the absence of vital cog Aaron Gordon due to injury. It certainly hasn’t helped that Jamal Murray, his supposed Number Two, has been hampered and inconsistent at best. Not even the astute pickup of the dynamic Russell Westbrook in the offseason has managed to address the glaring lack of scoring options. Which, for the most part, explains why they have to rely on a heliocentric offense to the extreme.
Creditably, Jokic did get to perform closer to expectations on Sunday. On the second night of a home-and-home set against the very same Spurs, he tallied a heady 46-9-10-2-2 clip off 35 shots to lead the Nuggets to victory and get them to reclaim the provisional fourth spot in West standings. And while he missed an open attempt from point-blank range for the outright win in regulation, he more than made up for it by scoring nine points and grabbing four rebounds in overtime. His sterling showing spoiled sophomore phenom Victor Wembanyama’s first 20-20 outing in the National Basketball Association, a development he no doubt relishes — if for nothing else than because he showed all and sundry that a changing of the guard will not happen anytime soon.
Indeed, Jokic continues to rule the roost. In the face of intense competition, MVPs don’t normally come from middling teams. So transcendent is he, however, that the hardware is his to lose, the remarkable rise of the Thunder and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander notwithstanding. The question, of course, is whether he will still have enough left in the tank to do at least as well in the playoffs. After all, it’s one thing to make the postseason, and quite another to go deep and meet the ultimate objective.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
