[Highlight] MVP matchup: Nikola Jokić hits a ridiculous fadeaway mid-range jumper over Victor Wembanyama
What are you supposed to do against that
Welcome to the club, Wemby.
AD getting PTSD watching this shot at his home rn…
AD still looking for the ball from the 2023 WCF.
Which one? Lol
Oof
That serbian somba still gives me nightmares
Be an 8 footer tall with an 8’4” wingspan?
He’d just arc it higher lol
Steph’s shot over Wemby at the Olympics is kinda iconic
Why, even though the game is 50% offense and defense, offense will always be valued higher.
You can be AD, be Gobert, be Pippen, be Bobby Jones, be Hakeem, be Wemby and the offensive player can always adjust to your gifts if they’re good enough. And there’s players good enough. It’s just how basketball works. Offense has the advantage, and that’s before you even take into account officiating (obviously favors offense).
AD, Gobert, Wemby
Case in point: These dudes are all DPOY-caliber dudes (if not outright multiple times winners in Gobert’s case), yet what Jokic has done to them over the years is outright disgusting. I mean, in Jokic’s 7 career games against Wemby he averages 38/11/9 on 62% ts.
If a dude is good enough on offense, there’s just nothing you can do.
Jokic grew up learning to shoot over his two giant brothers
Wemby just tried that…
He on stilts?
This is why when people try to argue that defence is 50% of the game….it’s not actually. Good offense will always beat good defence.
Exactly lol. Defense is important but if you can’t put the ball in the basket it means nothing
Rudy Gobert about to swing at you but it’s okay I like your chances.
This is not good offense.
It’s impossible offense. Nobody else is doing that shot.
Shooting over Wemby - it’s this dude and sky fucker. Maybe Luka, that’s it. Nobody else is even gonna try.
If Wemby was a foot taller he would have got that.
In the words of Lebron, “You just tip your hat.”
He forced Jokic into a very hard shot. I guess you just gotta tell yourself that it’s all a game of percentages.
Shake his hand.
Cry
Get hacked by Alex Caruso
Jokic has been absolutely fucking absurd in overtime on both ends
his defense was insane this game lol sorry jokic I wasn’t familiar with your game
also Gordon would be a perennial dpoy candidate if he was healthy his impact on their defense is wild.
That’s why I can’t wrap my head around so many analysts writing off the Nuggets. We have seen them look incredible when healthy for multiple years. Then Jokic, AG, Watson, etc. have a few injuries and people are like “nah, not a contender.”
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it many more times - the only person who deserves the right to call themselves an ‘analyst’ in the whole NBA space is Tim Legler.
the rest are just talking heads & not good ones, either.
Zach Lowe?
He deserves to be able to use the title, but I don’t think he calls himself that does he?
Eh, that’s extremely unfair to a loooot of analysts out there. It’s just that media is driven by attention not integrity, so a lot of analysts are given bigger platforms to speak when they can draw in high amounts of attention.
Attention is the newest currency in the world, and farming it has become its own economy now. Integrity still exists, just takes time and patience to sift through all the noise to find it these days. Think of it similar to the age of automation taking away attention and money from hard-working specialists. Handmade Carpentry vs IKEA.
“Attention is the newest currency in the world, and farming it has become its own economy now”
Holy 🔥🔥
It’s been pretty crazy , we started 20-6 with a healthy team and I legitimately felt this is our strongest team ever. Then Gordon , Watson, Braun and Jokic all miss minimum 1 month each , and everyone starts writing us off.
If I was any other team in the west I would not want to to against playoff Jokic (42+ mpg)
Johnson went out too
Can confirm going against playoff Jokic is not fun
Both Watson and Gordon have double injured the hamstrings, right? And Jokic was stumbling around on one leg for a while. They played great today but Brown went down and Watson still isn’t back.
He stopped a 2 on 1 fast break!
He does that at least once a game lol
Yep these guys that are considered seives on defense are usually making concerted efforts to conserve energy on defense since they focus on offense. There’s only so much cardio you can use in a game and they make risk reward calculations
Especially if it’s an iso offensive player. The rest of the team rests on offense so the other guy can rest on defense
The Nuggets have always prioritized being able to play down the stretch by conserving energy in the first half rather than waste it on first quarter defense.
This is 100% fair and absolutely true but at the same time deserves to be criticised for season long analysis and award voting, you shouldn’t get credit for being a good defender for the season when only doing it for 10 games out of 82. I had the same issues/criticism over the end of LeBron’s career 1 game on its own absolutely best defender over a season way way down the list
I’m not arguing that Jokic should get the MVP. I’m saying this is their strategy.
He’s a low effort defender (esp in the regular season), but he isn’t a bad defender when he tries
He’s a high motor defender in the big games + playoffs. Will take games off against weaker teams in the RS which lead to the lowlights. Plus, very polarized strengths/weaknesses which means some matchups are very good for him and some very bad defensively.
I’d agree. It doesn’t help that he pretty much has to run the Nuggets offense, I assume part of the lower effort D is to conserve himself
Wut
There is a 9 point swing in our defensive rating with or without AG this season.
When he gives a shit he’s more than capable on defense. He’s always pretty good on D in the playoffs. A lot of his regular season effort pisses me off
Nuggets treated it like a playoff game they are a different animal in the playoffs
As great as Wemby is Jokic might be his toughest matchup right now
He’s the only player who is almost completely unaffected by him because of his high release he’s used to shooting at an angle that’s needed to get it over Wemby’s length
I wouldn’t say unaffected. Victor’s blocked him something like 12 times in his career so far and even jokic admitted he had to play a very different style of game when he played against Victor. He’s just simply such a unbelievable post. Scorer Denver’s maybe the only team in the league that doesn’t have to worry about the “ anti-gravity” that Victor normally causes and can still reliably get their offense going inside out
Yeah Wemby forces everyone to change how they shoot at the rim but Jokic is one of the only players who can change his shot without affecting his accuracy.
it affects his accuracy, it just doesnt complete tank it to nothing like Wemby does to other players. Wemby is the most impactful defender 1v1 on Jokic I have ever seen.
Agreed. Wemby stuffed Jokic quite a few times this game. Jokic doesn’t get many easy shots against Wemby, but luckily Jokic is so good he doesn’t need easy shots.
He also has the length. A few of the times Wemby blocked him or disrupted his shot, Jokic got his own rebound. Jokic doesn’t miss twice from the paint.
It’s gotta be disheartening when Wemby blocks Jokic, Jokic just rebounds the block and immediately puts it right back over Wemby for the score. Wemby isn’t used to shit like that happening.
lol it was disheartening for me as a Spurs fan 😂 so I can’t imagine how disheartening it was for him. Man. It was so fun to watch them both go at it. I loved that game.
Yup. You don’t even need to go just off of blocks even, Jokic has to adapt his shot trajectories against him more than he does vs any other player. He has been overall very efficient vs Wemby but that is because he’s bringing his A+++ tier shotmaking bag for every single showdown against him
He’s tough for him on the defensive end because Wemby has to come out to the elbow and three point line to guard him. He gets him away from the rim.
The media won’t talk about his D though!
his what? 😳
His penis. Thought that was obvious
Aaron Gordong
His D, it was huge tonight
His defense is only relevant when its bad though /s
To be fair to the media, he only plays defence like 5 regular season games a year plus the playoffs… but when he tries he’s legit a demon
And this sub been treating Nugs fans like lunatics thinking he’s still try ‘em best in the league. Nah we see this shit.
He makes it look so easy, truly an all-time great
Easiest Jokic shot
Jokic after 23.9 seconds of suffocating defence
Dude that meme fits here so perfectly holy fuck 😂
Fuck it the back iron down there somewhere
A$AP Rocky’s “Praise the Lord” instrumental playing over this shot
I can’t see that meme without having the insane turnaround 3 he hit late in game 5 against the Thunder last year flash through my brain. Thank god we won because I’d be waking up in a cold sweat every few nights with that replaying in my head if we didn’t.
Sombor shuffle baby
Meanwhile Fox can’t hit an open shot 3 feet away from the basket lmao
And the Spurs cant finish a 2v1 fastbreak. I really wanted 2 OT
And Wemby couldn’t make a game winner over Aaron Gordon
To be fair, that shot was super close. Sometimes shots don’t fall. No one shoots 100%.
Well yea but he also had 0 points in OT becausehe couldn’t score on Aaron Gordon lol…
AD having PTSD after watching this
All of this with 0 turnovers. Insane..
6 turnovers for the entire team with an overtime. My Blazers commit 6 turnovers in like the first 4 min of the first quarter
Believe me, we usually do too. This might be the cleanest game we’ve played all season
And it still took a crazy comeback in the last 10 minutes and insanely clutch defense from AG to force OT in our own arena.
The Spurs are fckin good man…
Mr Nugget was absolutely heroic down the stretch
Look away Lakers fans
With fuckass Mike Malone gone, the choice between the Spurs and Nuggets is pretty easy to me.
Excuse me, it’s Michael Malone.
Lol never gets old
I think its underrated how much better everything got when all fans of the NBA no longer had to hear from Mike anymore
Several incredible things just happened in succession.
We had one of the biggest missed alley-oops just now by the Spurs, woulda tied the game. And then the follow-up also bricked.
What a game my friends. It’s a game of inches.
Spurs guards look lost
Especially in the last possessions in OT.
Fox airballed two threes in the fourth
One was a complete grenade with 2 seconds left on the shot clock
We definitely spazzed. Not a good look. Gear up boys! Playoffs incoming
Braun was playing really good defense on Fox that it basically took him out of the game.
Fox finally was cooking for a few possessions when he had Murray on him and Murray was respecting his drive too much.
That extra inch definitely matters
Nikola Jokic, best basketball player in the world, dontcha know?
It’s wild to me that some people apparently have him at #3 in the MVP race.
Dude, some people with actual MVP votes have him in fifth!
one guy fully left him off the ballot lmao
Its wild how you guys buy into the whole sportsbook agenda of the MVP race not being over months ago when Jokić got hurt.
Theyre literally stirring shit up to get more bets thats it.
We got 4 MVP candidates this year and we should be happy, you usually dont see so many guys play at such a high level. But thinking anyone apart from SGA is getting the MVP is delusional at this point in the season. And this is coming from someone who hopes they choke a 3-0 lead in the first round and sell the team.
MVP doesn’t mean the best player in the league, otherwise Lebron would’ve won for basically 10 straight years.
I can’t wait for the playoffs
As a laker fan, I certainly can
Hey maybe they can like suspend them 1 or 6 weeks
That’s such a fucking bummer man, I’m sorry and I hope it’s not as bad as it probably is
Hopefully the refs don’t wreck it.
Jokic showing Wemby that theres levels to this shit
And Wemby had an unethical 17 free throw attempts lol. Let’s get them spurs fans mad
Flopping like a damn fish all game
Mauled them on defense and then got soft fouls on offense (am I doing it right?)
You almost got it! But it has to be a different teammate mauling than the one flopping which is somehow the fault of the one flopping.
I was so mad on that challenge when they took the foul away from Joker and put it on Gordon because Wemby stepped on him.
That shit was crazy along with the travel, this game felt like the NBA and their referees are protecting Wemby’s reputation.
I mean Jokic had 15. No need to get crazy here
Wemby will be the best player in the world one day. That day is absolutely not today though. This is Jokic’s league
Jokic just gave him a little reminder. Not yet kid
And mother fuckers act like they forgot about Dre Jokic.
Wemby is actually insane for 22 years old. Like, there will be a period of time in the league where Wemby will be the defining factor of which team wins.
To borrow the SGA line, everyone is better than Jokic until its time to be better than Jokic.
Ah yes the “fuck you Davis” shot
He got cross eyed and thought Wemby had a unibrow for a second
Jokic sees AD the same way that Wemby sees Chetanyahu
Jokic is just unguardable, my god. Like every year, the nuggets making a run is going to come down to how much his teammates can step up, because the Joker will always get his in the playoffs
His catapult shot in the clutch is the modern skyhook what is this bullshit
Yeah when these stsrt going down you are fucked.
Been there.
The one game he hit this kinda shit in that series yall still won because everyone else on our team was actively working for ISIS
Aaron Gordon sure wasn’t. He truly terrified me
He was pretty bad in the game I’m talking about (game 5) if I recall, though he had an amazing series of course
I had mostly repressed the memory of that game, you fuck.
This game has game 7 of the finals vibes holy shit
Vintage Sombor Shuffle
followed by a Dirk Nowitski ahh fadeaway
You can say ass. No one is going to tattle on you lil buddy.
Regardless of the MVP conversation, he’s the best player in the league 6 years running.
Tbh its not uncommon for the best player and MVP to be different guys due to voter fatigue.
We got like 4 unstopable forces in the NBA rn shits insane.
And somehow all 4 are in the West with the east basically only having the Celtics.
And the best healthy player in the east is the same level as ANT, the west is fucking insane man.
Brother hit the Peter Griffin shot
Quahog’s finest
Y’all forgot this guy’s the BITW
You’re just saying that bc you have the same agent
Wemby completely disappeared in the last minute and OT.
Honestly he did, along with terrible play calling from Mitch Johnson, and De’Aaron Fox deciding he wanted to be fucking ass in the 4th and OT
Imagine the outrage if sga bricked a game winner, shot 17 free throws, and disappeared in ot
In all fairness Shai doesn’t really ever disappear in the clutch
Bro hasnt missed a clutch shot this month lol
Fuck the thunder, but thats ridiculous. Dude is insane.
Saying he bricked a game winner is a stretch. Fading behind the back board and it was off by an inch
Let me get my slander off i dont care about the facts
He looked gassed out there
clearly Wemby never trained in the French alps…
He’s probably burned out. Like did he get any rest in the 4th? I feel like he played the whole way.
He played 39 minutes to Jokic’s 43
I don’t watch much Spurs, but hasn’t he been playing 30ish everynight? 40 musta been a stretch.
Yep, he plays less minutes than other top players, plus wasn’t used to altitude.
Brian Windorst said a couple days ago that if Wembanyama gets 36 minutes a game he could average 40 and 20. I’ve never seen a player get so much love without ever going thru a full season plus post season.
Jokic is fitter than Wemby. It’s as clear as day. Jokic can play more minutes so have a bigger impact for a longer time. that was the difference.
Remember that game where Jokic played 65⁄68 minutes of a 4OT game? The Nuggets lost, but Jokic has the stamina of… well, a horse. He conserves his energy really well.
Yeah that’s Wemby’s kryptonite, big minutes, especially in fast paced games. He got caught out a bunch of times there because he was tired - I’m not sure Jokic gets that fade over a fresh Wemby for example
I’m the biggest SGA fan there is. Joker is the best player in the world and honestly I can’t think of a better player besides LeBron/Steph in my lifetime.
Respect. I think Shai had just as much of a case for MVP last year. But I don’t think he’s better yet.
It’s honestly just crazy we’re experiencing one of the greatest guard peaks and one of the greatest center peaks of all time at the same time. People have legitimate gripes about the NBA but there’s really never been a better time to be a basketball fan.
Genuinely crazy for his legacy that this shit greens even over wembanyama. You can’t get more unguardable than that shot
Lol yeah after that evidence, ain’t no one stopping that trebuchet when Jokic is in “fuck it” mode.
Jokic is such BS. i still have PTSD from the piroette 3pt he hit on us last playoffs
I get voter fatigue is a thing but jokic deserves mvp and anyone else would be a robbery
I think it’s fine to say that Jokic deserves MVP but claiming it to be a robbery is a bit of a misrepresentation.
Hes leading the league in rebounds and assists while having the same blocks/steals as shai and getting 3 less PPG on better shooting. Its not a robbery in the sense that Shai is having a season worthy of MVP if jokic doesnt exist, but jokic does exist so it would be a robbery. And this is coming from someone who strongly dislikes the nuggets and is still celebrating the 2024 semis
Horseman is on fire
Your good for life jokic ❤️❤️
Shai? Wemby? Fuck the big 3 it’s just the big me
This dude is crazy lmfao
Jokic is still lightyears ahead of Wemby on offense.
Aaron Gordon locking wemby up at the end of regulation and OT. Jokic is the MVP ladies and gentlemen
If only Wemby was a little bit taller
I wouldn’t mind a Nuggets vs Spurs series in the 2nd round. It seems inevitable after the Reaves injury news.
He deserves the MVP more than anyone
Best in the motherfucking world
My shaila…
instane ending to the game. Jokic carried
Wemby gotta be thinking “This mother fucker too good.”
What an unbelievable shot.
okc nuggets spurs really the rock paper scissors of nba
Levels
Shaq doesn’t like the way Jokic and Wemby played today
Prime example of why defense doesn’t matter as much as offense does
This must’ve been like the battle of giants they spoke about in folklore.
Just saw a Martian fall to his knees at Walmart. Thats the JOKIĆ EFFECT
Sorry, young fella!
This dude is unreal! He’s the greatest athlete to not resemble an athlete. Dudes built like the world dart champion but is the best basketball player in the league.
GOOD NIGHT
Dude’s fadeaway is automatic
Yeah there’s levels to this shit lol, Jokic is dangerous
THE SOMBOR SHUFFLE IS STILL HERE
This dude aimed at the heavens and said “ball game”
If Wemby can’t get to it, that is a legit unblockabke shot