With Jokic a no-show, Nuggets have no shot
TL A KE BUENA VISTA, FLA .» he rain fell and the Joker pouted. The end of this humiliating 124-87 playoff loss to Utah on Friday was a sad scene, painted in gray tones of regret. As rain puddles formed on sidewalks outside the arena, the Nuggets’ season began to swirl down the drain.
For the first time in his remarkable, young NBA career, Nuggets center Nikola Jokic faces the prospect of being a huge disappointment.
In a playoff game Denver desperately needed to win, Joker was 7 feet tall and nearly invisible.
Skinny Joker got pushed around by Utah’s Rudy Gobert. How could Jokic seem so disengaged, especially in a playoff game with so much on the line?
“That would be a great question for Nikola,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said.
As Jazz center Rudy Gobert dominated at both ends of the floor, making 11-of-15 shots for 24 points while collecting 14 rebounds, Jokic stood back and watched.
I’ve never thought these words before, much less typed them: The Joker was a joke.
Heaven forbid if John Elway or Peyton Manning ever stunk up a playoff game the way Jokic let the Nuggets fall into a sinkhole that feels muddier than their 2-1 deficit in this best-of-seven series.
Although Jokic finished with a respectable 15 points, he scored only a single basket and took just two shots at the juncture this game was all over except the pouting, when Utah took a commanding 42-20 lead with seven minutes, 29 seconds remaining in the second quarter.
Passive Nikola is bad Nikola. For much of the opening half, Jokic’s most aggressive move was ducking out of the way of repeated dunks by Gobert.
I asked Joker where his Agame went.
“I took really good shots. I just missed,” said Jokic. “I think (Gobert) is a great defender … He’s a great player. But I think I just missed shots.”
Gobert has also now bettered or matched Jokic’s scoring production in eight of their 17 career meetings, which has seen Utah win 10 times.
Near the end of the third quarter, Jokic made a careless pass toward the top of the key. As Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell intercepted the basketball and took off for a dunk that put Utah ahead by 30 points, Jokic threw back his head in exasperation. Jokic had quit on the game without a fight as certainly as he had given away a turnover.
I was an eye-witness to this abomination, from a socially distanced seat in the front row of Section 201 inside the Sports House of the Mouse. Even while wearing a mask, it was possible to detect the stench of Denver’s performance from my seat in the balcony.
This lopsided loss, which often seemed to be nothing except an endless highlight reel of uncontested 3-point shots and layups by the Jazz, was even uglier to behold in person than on television.
“How do you know? Did you watch it on TV?” argued Nuggets fan David Lakes, challenging my assertion. “It was beyond ugly. I switched the TV over to a 25year-old episode of ‘Law & Order.’ ”
The game tipped off shortly after 4 p.m. in Florida. Other than Jamal Murray, who played as if the thought of losing backto-back games against Utah made him furious, the Nuggets acted like a bunch of guys wanting to go find half-price appetizers during happy hour.
Murray seethed in defeat. “I think we have a target on our back,” he repeatedly said, with arms crossed defensively across his chest, futilely trying to conceal pain in his heart during a postgame Zoom conference.
Their rise to playoff contender in 2019 was full of hope and optimism, even when San Antonio took them to the limit in the first round. This year feels different, with Denver burdened with the weight of expectation.
Denver arrived at the NBA bubble more than a month ago, banged up and disjointed, with preparation time for roughly half its roster disrupted by COVID-19 issues. The Nuggets treated eight games in advance of the playoffs on the Disney campus more like exhibition games, with Malone sacrificing any chance at victory by resting his best players in the fourth quarter more than once.
“I think we give in too easily,” Malone said. “Our group has to be a lot more mentally tough.”
On a team that has tried to con itself into believing this is a legitimate title contender, Malone will feel the heat if he doesn’t figure out a way for the Nuggets to win this series.
To be fair, Denver also found itself down 2-1 in the opening round against the Spurs a year ago, but didn’t lose two games by anywhere near the 56 total points in these two blowouts by Utah.
If the Nuggets are to have any chance of a comeback, it doesn’t start with coaching strategy. It must begin with Jokic declaring himself the best player on the floor.
If the Nuggets can’t find the Joker we know and love, they have no shot.