The only player worse? His teammate and backup, Thomas Bryant.īig men win a disproportionate share of Defensive Player of the Year awards because they have the most important assignment in the sport: defending the bucket. That ranks 64th among 65 players to heavily contest 250 layups and dunks this season. Opponents have shot 54.2% on layups and dunks when Jokic is the contesting defender AND he heavily contests the shot, per Second Spectrum tracking. Jokic has allowed the highest field goal percentage (69.0%) on those attempts among this group. Per NBA Advanced Stats, 33 players have defended 300 shots at the rim this season. These two stats tell you everything you need to know about how well Jokic has protected the hoop for the Nuggets in 2022-23. The Spurs beat the Nuggets that night because they exploited the softest spot in Denver's defense on repeat: Jokic's rim protection. Jokic is not a very valuable defensive player in large part because he struggles as a rim protector. The box score might suggest Jokic was the best player in the game, but deeper looks into nerdier numbers reveal some major defensive limitations of the league's two-time defending MVP. But that nightmare of a game for Denver epitomized the biggest issues with Jokic's game, the wider perception of his overall play and the Nuggets' title chances. While conventional NBA stats and storylines continue to perpetuate an extreme offensive bias, perhaps no player's reputation benefits more from it than Jokic. The headline of the game's recap read: "Spurs overcome Jokic's triple-double to top Nuggets 128-120." While Keldon Johnson scored 23 points in the win, Jokic had 37 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Jokic allowed 43 points on those shots, the most allowed by any single defender in any game this season. San Antonio took 32 shots with Jokic as the closest defender, the highest such total for any defender in any single game this season, according to Second Spectrum, and it worked. Should the NBA reconsider how it determines its scoring leader?.Supercuts of defensive fails often can be misleading without more context, but in this case the numbers back up Jokic's weaknesses on the defensive end, and that's an understatement. In some clips, Jokic looked too slow, and in others he appeared apathetic as the younger players blew past him or went over him for easy buckets. On March 10, Denver entered its road game against the Spurs as heavy favorites, and they left disappointed after San Antonio targeted Jokic's rim protection to great effect.Īfter the game, a compilation of Spurs players making easy layups over Jokic went viral. Those questions were amplified following an embarrassing road loss in San Antonio earlier this month. Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic has emerged as one of the most dominant players of his era, helping resurrect the relevance of centers in the modern NBA.įollowing their 129-106 win against the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday, the Nuggets have won 50 games, and their star center is once again in the middle of the league's MVP discussion.īut while the 7-footer is an offensive savant whose elite playmaking has fueled the Nuggets' rise to the best record (50-24) in the Western Conference, there are questions about his value on the less glamorous end of the floor, and whether his defensive play is good enough to help his team make a deep playoff run.
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