Portland Is Fully Committed To Making Nikola Jokic A Scorer
Nikola Jokic scored as many points as any other player league-wide on the opening the day of the postseason, dropping 34 points in his team's loss to the Trail Blazers. Conventional wisdom suggests Portland will adjust on defense going forward, doing more to ensure the MVP favorite doesn't go off like he did in Game 1.
But even a cursory glance at the box score indicates the Blazers' refusal to double-team Jokic paid off. One of the several most creative passers in basketball – and certainly the best playmaking big man of all time – managed just a single assist on Saturday, one fewer than any game during the regular season.
The last time Jokic had two assists, by the way? In Portland's crucial, blowout victory over Denver in the season finale, further evidence of a working strategy the Blazers will continue deploying going forward.
"It was huge," Damian Lillard said after the game of Jokic finishing with one assist. "We know when they're at their best he's setting the table, he's dominating the game as a playmaker and he's scoring, he's just kind of having his way. You know a guy that is as good as he is, an MVP candidate – the MVP in my opinion – you know that he's gonna play well. You know that he's gonna do what he does, but you gotta take something away."
Taking something away from Jokic meant leaving him on an island with Jusuf Nurkic, tempting the wrath of an elite individual scorer.
Jokic shot 55.6 percent on post-ups this season, per NBA.com/stats, fifth-best in the league. He was even more efficient operating in isolation, shooting 57.3 percent, a hair worse than the unstoppable Zion Williamson.
Jokic got his points, of course, and they came at the expense of lifting Denver's depleted supporting cast to a level it can't reach by itself, just like the Blazers planned. But watching Jokic go right at Nurkic and Enes Kanter over and over – once to such a devastating extent that his jubilant teammates were egging him on from the bench – makes it easy to forget that he wasn't even all that efficient, either.
Jokic went 14-of-27 from the field, 3-of-7 from deep and 3-of-4 at the free throw line, yielding a true shooting percentage of 59.1. Not only is that number only slightly above individual league average, but it pales in comparison to Jokic's hyper-efficient 64.7 percent mark from the regular season.
Nurkic deserves most of the credit for keeping his former teammate in relative check. Jokic shot just 6-of-16 when guarded by Nurkic, per NBA.com, abusing Kanter and Robert Covington to the tune of 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting.
"Defensively, it's a tough assignment," Terry Stotts said of the Blazers' approach on Jokic. "It's tough when you're guarding the most likely MVP and you're playing him straight up; that's a tough assignment. But I thought [Nurkic] competed, and we needed him."
Portland should rethink so readily switching Covington onto Jokic following screens from Aaron Gordon. After Jokic embarrassed Kanter in the first half with a series of scores on the block, the Blazers' help defenders began digging down a step deeper, making Jokic see bodies from the weak side.
Late in the fourth quarter, after a timeout, Portland even sent a full-fledged double-team at Jokic with Nurkic guarding him on the left block – perhaps a sign of aggressive, situational help to come throughout the remainder of this series.
But don't expect the Blazers' big-picture plan on Jokic to change. Despite the gaudy point totals and impressive one-on-one highlights, Nurkic knows single-covering Jokic is the best way for Portland to win.
"[Jokic is] a great player. When he scores I think we have a better chance," he said.
Game 1 certainly indicates as much.