Nikola Jokic Reveals Update on Injury Before Rematch With 76ers

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Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic was accidentally poked in the eye by New York Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo during Thursday night's game, which forced him back to the locker room where he was evaluated before eventually returning to start the second half. While Jokic was able to finish out the game, this injury remains something to monitor for he and the team, as he told reporters after the game it briefly got better before getting worse:
Nikola Jokić said his eye was painful. When we talked to him postgame he said it was getting better, but now it’s getting worse.
— Katy Winge (@katywinge) January 26, 2024
“Hopefully it’s going to be okay.”
Whether or not this will force Jokic to miss any time remains to be seen, but it would not be surprising to see him wearing eye protection the next time the Nuggets play. Injuries like this are scary, because they can always vary in severity. In Jokic's case, it looked to be a direct poke to the eye that he suffered, which made it that much more impressive that he was able to return to the game.
As Jokic told reporters postgame, his eye was in some pain, and seemed to be getting worse after initially getting better. The Nuggets will play their next game on Saturday against the Philadelphia 76ers, which is the highly anticipated rematch between Jokic and Joel Embiid. For Denver and NBA fans everywhere, the hope is certainly that Jokic will be good to go for this game, but the injury report has not yet been released.
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Joey Linn is a credentialed writer covering the NBA and WNBA for On SI. Covering the LA Clippers independently in 2018, then for Fansided and 213Hoops from 2019-2021, Joey joined On SI to cover the Clippers after the 2020-21 season. Graduating from Biola University in 2022 with a Communication Studies degree, Joey served as Biola's play-by-play announcer for their basketball, baseball, softball, and soccer teams. Joey's work on Biola's broadcasts and in the classroom earned him the Outstanding Communication Studies Student of the year award in 2022. Joey covers the NBA full-time, primarily serving as a Clippers beat writer.