Blazers Know the Challenge 'MVP' Nikola Jokic Presents In First Round
Jusuf Nurkic believes Damian Lillard is the league's rightful MVP. But acknowledging his current teammate's odds of winning basketball's highest individual honor are low, Portland's big man believes his former one is the next most worthy candidate.
At issue for Nurkic and the Trail Blazers? Nikola Jokic, MVP shoo-in, happens to be their opponent in the first round of the playoffs.
"If Dame's not gonna win the MVP, I think he's gonna win MVP, he should win MVP," Nurkic said of Jokic on Sunday. "I'd be happy for him for real."
Jokic averaged 29.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.0 assists in three games against Portland during the regular season, stellar numbers artificially deflated by his low minute total. He and three other Denver starters only played the first half of Sunday's lopsided season finale, remember. Jokic was close to dominant before intermission, dropping 21 points despite some solid individual defense from Nurkic.
Expect Portland to send a little more help at Jokic post-ups in the first round than it did on Sunday. Keeping a player of his all-time caliber – how else to categorize Jokic if he's being compared to LeBron James and Kevin Durant? – in check doesn't fall to a single defender.
"I think it's a team effort to guard a player like that, under a system like that," Nurkic said when asked about his prospects defending Jokic. "It takes more than just one player, like you're guarding LeBron or KD."
Terry Stotts, calling Jokic an "MVP player," suggested the team effort it will take to slow down such an all-encompassing offensive fulcrum is the Blazers' most important task defensively.
"Everything for them revolves around Jokic – his scoring, his passing, his rebounding" he said of the Nuggets. "So how we can limit his effectiveness is probably the biggest key."
Damian Lillard spoke about the challenge Jokic posed to Portland during these teams' epic seven-gamer in the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals. Jokic averaged video-game numbers of 27.1 points, 13.9 rebounds and 7.7 assists on 61.6 percent true shooting in that series, putting widespread questions about his ability to perform in the playoffs to rest.
That was two years ago, with Jokic en route to his first and only selection for First Team All-NBA. He's the MVP favorite now, with large-scale improvement to show for it.
"Jokic is an even better player now, which is...He was great then," Lillard said. "But he's a better player now."
There's an old NBA adage that the team with the best player usually wins tightly-contested playoff series.
Lillard, he's made forcefully clear yet again, is at least a top-10 player in the NBA. For the Nuggets to beat the Blazers without Jamal Murray, Jokic will have to be even better than that, abusing a playoff defense geared toward stopping him first and foremost.