[Lowlights] The Minnesota Timberwolves relentlessly hunting Nikola Jokic on defense, putting him in every action and blowing past him for easy rim finishes.
The other issue here is that their guards are not offering much point of attack resistance. Lots of these plays are also lowlights of Murray getting beaten and allowing guys to get into the paint. With two guys not offering much resistance - especially a center who can’t protect the rim, Adelman has to cook something up to figure out how to stop Minnesota from getting good shots at the basket.
Denver haven’t been a terrible playoff defense over the last few years though, particularly in their title run, so they could figure this out. Their lack of size on the perimeter with Watson out does really hurt them though.
Denver haven’t been a terrible playoff defense over the last few years though, particularly in their title run, so they could figure this out.
People keep saying this, but 3 of the 4 teams they faced in their 2023 playoff run had a bottom-10 offense (the Wolves, Lakers, and Heat). Of course their defense looked a lot better against teams that had a shitty offense, but against the Suns in the second round they struggled to guard them. Booker averaged 30 a game on insane efficiency. The thing is, the Suns offense wasn’t even that good that year…it was just Booker and Durant taking turns with very little ball movement.
More specifically those 3 teams didn’t offer much in terms of quick guards who could really pressure Murray.
Correct. Anyone that had a chance to scorch Murray absolutely did.
That Suns team was also missing CP3 for 4⁄6 games
Wouldn’t really say they struggled to guard them. Booker shot well & had a few big games but Phoenix’s 111.4 defensive rating isn’t particularly strong. It was only games 3 and 4 where Denver ‘struggled to guard’ the suns tbh. They held them to close to 100 twice & kept them under 90 in game 2.
True, but my point was that the Suns were the “best offense” they faced in that whole playoff run, and they weren’t even good. The 3 other teams they beat entered the playoffs with offenses comparable to lottery teams, so that’s why saying Denver’s defense was great in that playoff run is an exaggeration.
Not only does watson out hurt them, Gordon has obviously not been 100% for a bit now. He doesn’t seem to have his side to side explosion nor a bouncy step. He was always crucial as a help defender and rim protector. Watson and Braun are such a good tall wing defensive setup and its obvious when any of the bigs sit that he is missed.
Great breakdown
Everytime I’ve said this I’ve been downvoted but I rather my superstar offensive guy be a bad defender be as a wing/guard than be as a big. It’s much easier to scheme around a below average perimeter than a bad rim protector
We see it on the Wolves all the time too. Rudy’s offensive limitations hurt our team at times, but his defense makes us elite on that side of the ball.
Randle/Naz front court offense cannot overcome the putrid defense.
It’s extremely rare to have a legit 2-way big, and it’s tough in general to find bigs that are elite on one side of the ball.
Jokic is maybe the best offensive player of our generation, but people forget how huge of an asset Gordon was to their title run in supporting Jokic on D.
To be fair, Rudy isn’t the average good defensive center.
He is a generationally good defender.
I mean you don’t have to stop at generation. It’s literally top 5 ever.
The NBA is 79 years old. Generational means every 20-30 years. “Top 5 ever” is possibly a downgrade, or almost the same exact thing.
What do you mean? Just draft 3 of those with 3 1st overall picks amirite?
Wait is drafting elite players supposed to be hard?
Fuck you cries
Apparently for some teams LOL
This is why I’m so excited about Joan. Because while it’s extremely unlikely he becomes as good of a defender as Rudy, he is shaking signs of the ability to be very good on that end, while he also has pretty good potential on the offensive side. He’s already a much better shooter, finisher, and FT shorter than Rudy, but isn’t yet near that level at setting screens and doing the little things to help our offense run smoother.
Not that it isn’t still a mega rare thing to land a superstar in general but if we compare Jokic to some of the other superstar Centers of the past few years like Giannis/Embiid/AD/Wemby, it definitely seems like a lot more of those guys are legit 2-way players, even if there a tad less offensively productive the Jokic.
KAT is like the only other big name center that comes to mind right now whose really good on offense but absolute rubbish on defense
If this was Luka, NBA media would’ve revealed his social security number on live TV today.
NBA media is full of Jokic’s darlings; they won’t say a word.
They complain about Luka’s whining all the time, but for example they forgot to mention Jokic actually harmed an NBA player by blindsidingly hitting them from the back. Imagine what would be said about that if someone else had done that.
Marcus, don’t try and blow peoples knees out and then immediately turn around if you dont want to get shoved in the back
It wasn’t right but i feel like you are leaving Morris’s cheapshot out for a reason
And I can absolutely admit we give jokic a lot of slack on things on this subreddit that we shouldnt
Yeah, I’m not even sure why that person brought up the Morris thing after talking about the media’s bias about Luka complaining.
How about how we never hear about Jokic’s complaining and how annoying it is? Not in the media, and not on Reddit. He complains just as much as Luka, and flops a whole hell of a lot more.
Nice try, Morris had it coming.
lol
It felt pretty bad watching Brunson get hunted too
I’m suprised you’ve been downvoted. I’d much rather a Harden/Doncic or even a Brunson than Jokic defensively.
Why would this get downvoted? Rim protection is the single most important part of an NBA defense. This isn’t a hot take at all, it should be common sense
I do think this has gotten less obvious in the past 15 years as mismatch hunting has become more prevalent. In particular I think the small guard who can’t defend really is brutal too. But overall I agree and this is big reason why Jokic is the only offense first center to win the title as a top player on his team since Shaq.
Any weakness is getting hunted. Nuggets are the only championship team in the past 5 years to have clear weak points on defense, look at that bucks team, who do you attack in the clutch?
That’s extremely obvious, tall rim defenders are more valuable as defensive players
minny’s coach is really smart. this could definitely work and it doesnt even apply to just jokic
Don’t say that on the Twolves sub lmao
He might not be a perfect coach, but at least he is a really good offensive coach.
Honestly it’s hard to tell if he’s a legitimately terrible offensive coach or it’s just that Ant/Julius dribble the air out of the ball, don’t move much off ball, and go rogue frequently. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt but he’s certainly not definitively a good offensive coach lol.
Pretty sure Ant and Jaden have both either stated or stated without saying it, that Ant can at times ignore the plays and ignore passing because he’s doing his thing. Losses this year Ant said many times they didn’t do what Finch asked. Jaden talked about juat watching Ant do his thing. Then you look at the ball movement and such from our bench guys like Ayo, Bones and SlowMo, it really makes me think the lack of structure at times is less Free Flow Finching it up and more Ant and Randle going off script or deciding its ISOin time.
I think it’s rather telling that the players have often been like “yeah we didn’t stick to the game plan” after a bad loss.
Really it seems like Finch’s biggest issue is getting his team disciplined enough to consistently do what he says.
Not on crunch time. I never trust Finch’s schemes on an inbound play.
Yeah, we hate it when you call it “Minny”
you mean the nuggets? lol
Wolves fans are very critical of finch
“Wolves fans” is stretching it.
“NEW wolves fans” and/or “Anthony Edwards fans” are very critical of Finch lol
I’m a long time fan and I’m critical of finch, he’s had issues his entire tenure. We constantly don’t show up for inferior opponents, we blow big leads, and the offense can go flat for entire quarters. He can’t call a last second out of bounds play, has a hard time managing rotations, and struggles to develop our young players.
That said, he’s brought the Wolves to back to back WCFs, has managed a team of highly talented players well, and is the best coach in our franchise’s history.
Most of the time I don’t know what’s an issue with players executing his plan and Finch losing control of the game, but I think a lot of criticisms are fair
Our sub is very toxic, it wasn’t like this 10 years ago🥀
oh thats every fanbase on this app
True but especially the Wolves or other teams that went from having low/no expectations to high expectations. A few years ago making the playoffs at all was a huge win. Now a loss in the first or even second round feels like a disappointment.
well no disrespect to wolves fanbase but I cant see the team beating spurs or okc with ant hurt. He would need to be at 110% percent to pull off that level of heroics imo
I’m inclined to agree. Gonna need a miracle of Ant suddenly becoming healthy or Randle becoming prime LeBron for a series lol. Neither of which seem all that likely. But the Wolves are also known to play both up and down to their competition so anything’s possible.
Good times. Big three of Andrew Wiggins, Kat, and Bazz
Woah respect zach lavine. Still sad that trio never hot a chance to fully develop but atleast we have ant now
Join the club…
Your team isnt good unless its toxic. Bulls sub is small and full of pleasant interactions because we are all sharing trauma of following this garbage team
But it’s a fatal flaw on your defense if the 7 foot center can’t rim protect at all
Is he?
We did for this like a few minutes, and then everyone forgot about the strategy, and the lead we had evaporated lol.
that was awful, he barely contested much less jumped in all of those possessions
Jokic jumped
Jokic
jumped
How do you think he gets so many rebounds? By not contesting lol
The Westbrook method
Westbrook got so much slander and jokic finally starting to get some of it love to see it
Westbrook had some insane offensive rebounds
He give up a bit higher percentage at the rim, but also gives up fewer offensive rebounds and putbacks. In the long run, does that actually come result in many more points being scored against you? This kind of thing is a big reason why there’s such a big disconnect between the folks that tout their “eye test” above all and how the numbers portray him as a defender.
He’s definitely being coached to avoid fouling at all costs. The easiest way to stack up fouls is to overextend and contest when you’re already beat.
Definitely a downside of having your best offensive player also have to be your rim protector when they don’t have lateral speed.
Low-key Jaren Jackson Jr would be a really good PF partner for Jokic for that reason while Joker being a monster rebounder covers that weakness for Jaren
You can say this about basically every C and Jaren
Only a stretch 5 like Jokic could work, can’t have them both operating below the rim on offense. Clingan/Embiid would be an amazing duo for JJJ.
Clingan and JJJ is a built in anti air defense system
Not really, if the C is a mediocre rebounder, and I can’t imagine how fast he would be fouling out if he was contesting every single shot in every single game as the primary rim protector
I actually think Jokic’s specific skills as a shooter and passer set him apart from your traditional big Cs who can rebiund. Would allow him to also drive and cut/lob target and use his offensive game more than if you’re looking at someone like even Sengun who can’t make those openings due to being a poor shooter even if he’s a good passer. You could apply similar ideas to Embiid (though he hasn’t been nearly as good of a rebounder since his injury) and Wemby (nobody going near the rim with those 2) but I think in terms of the weaknesses he covers, JJJ probably does more for Jokic and benefits from playing with him more than the other 2.
What is this insane cope that people say?
This dude isn’t KAT or Giannis.
Jokic has fouled out 10 times in his career in the regular season. He fouled out of the playoffs once. He is not a high foul player. He does not stop playing defense when he is in foul trouble.
He is just a dogshit rim protecter/help-defender. That is it.
Nothing insane or cope about it. Don’t know why so many people feel the need to be hyperbolous. I’m literally pointing out that he’s a bad defender cause he’s slow laterally.
When he’s beat he keeps his hands down because he’s been told “if you get beat, don’t reach”. And he’s getting beat a lot. He’s not keeping his hands down because he’s he’s lazy.
More evidence of this is that when he is in good defensive position, his hands are up. He swatted the shit out of Rudy in the 4th. He’s very obviously intentionally keeping his hands down when he’s beat because he (and the coaching staff) know he can’t afford to get into foul trouble.
And again, this is not an excuse for Jokic, because the whole reason he’s being told to do this is because he get’s beat a lot. It’s just silly to think he’s keeping his hands down for no reason.
He’s slow laterally, can’t high jump, and is not good at contesting shots vertically (or at all really). Yes he is a bad rim protecter and bad at help defense.
Your comment was implying the reason he is a bad rim protecter and a bad help-defender was because he didn’t want to get into foul trouble. No it’s because he is a bad rim protecter.
Your comment was implying the reason he is a bad rim protecter and a bad help-defender was because he didn’t want to get into foul trouble.
Not my intent. My point was that it’s clear he’s choosing not to contest when he’s beat. Your points are correct, and that’s why he’s been told to do this. People who don’t know ball might see this video and think he’s too lazy to even try.
*hyperbolic
I will usually defend Jokic using the same argument, but he finished this game with just 3 personal fouls. I think fatigue was a bigger factor – he played 40 minutes at playoff intensity (versus only 3 for Valančiūnas).
And Valančiūnas picked up 3 fouls in those 3 minutes
he does it to avoid fouling out and giving and-1s. early on in his career he tried to contest more shots but it led to fouls. he’s not altering the shots anyway so it’s better to avoid fouling and focus on rebounding.
Yeah, he has a big body and quick hands, but is otherwise pretty slow, and has no chance against players like Ant or JM. He’d just foul every time. This is the tradeoff you’re making with Jokic and it’s worked for them.
Lol, Jokic cannot jump to save his life
He at least got a poster on Rudy last night 🤷♂️
Jokic is usually better than this, he is by no means a Gobert or Wemby level defender, but it is rare to see him just be a turnstile like he was yesterday. Something for sure bothering him as he was bad on the offensive side of things as well, shots he would typically make falling short and he was passing up easy jump shots. There was more to it than just Minny defending great (which they did)
he
Did we watch the same video? This isn’t just a Jokic problem. The whole team is playing no defense. From the guards to the center there’s no resistance at all.
Yeah man you can spare me whatever advanced metrics or numbers you have that say Jokic “aCKshually isn’t that bad” or whatever, some of these clips are downright disgusting.
All defensive metrics are dogshit.
This is prime James harden defense
Harden was never this bad tf
Mods better not take this down
damn i remember it looking bad live but this is really awful. he’s a fine defender against another big 1v1, but the second he has to move and actually do something he’s getting blown by almost every play.
We gotta stop treating Jokic like he’s a make a wish kid when talking about his defense.
“A fine defender against another big 1v1” hes horrible at that too
i don’t think he’s horrible at that. he can’t be pushed around due to strength and it’s not like other bigs call for iso post ups against him often. i meant it more of he’s fine at just being a big body in the paint
“big body defender” call that the KAT
Got that Audi crooks defense
He’s got the energy of someone politely opening a door for an old lady in a lot of these clips
…That’s most centers? How many centers with mobility are there in the league? 10?
Jokic somehow avoids the slander players like Harden and Luka get for their poor defense.
They have the nerve to call this the best player in the world too
You are making this up. Every year people bitch about Jokic’s defense
Conversations are had every year, but it has never gotten close to the level of Luka or Harden especially by the media
Doesn’t affect his standings in awards.
Yep and the fact is Lukas not even a bad defender like Jokic is
He won a ring
Yeah just because he faced Miami. Not blaming him, it’s luck of the draw. If Luka or Harden just got lucky and didn’t matched generational teams we’d be talking a lot different about them too.
“Playoff” defense
But but but advanced metrics told me he’s a good defender!
Let’s face it, fat out of shape white guys are always going to put on their capes for Jokic. It’s why if you make a comment being critical of his defense you get downvoted in most game threads.
It’s also how you get stat nerds with a straight face telling you Jokic is a good defender because of their cherry picked numbers.
That is exactly why there are so many die hard jokic/luka fans, fat white boys love cheering for fat white boys
Jokic’s defense gets a pass over offensive stats, but Luka doesn’t get the same benefit of the doubt because he wasn’t lucky to have a team capable of winning a ring yet.
Luka had a winning team only difference was he faced Boston while Jokic faced the 8th seed Heat. lmao
They were also pretty spent by the time they reached the finals. Like Kyrie didn’t do anything except one 35pt game in that series.
Who know what would’ve happened if the East didn’t collapse that year, but I’ll take the ring over none
I remember a few weeks ago they posted a Jokic highlight guarding Fox and the comments were glazing the hell out of him. You could definitely see the double standards.
I was very thankful to be playing the Mavericks in that finals.
Minnesota did us a solid taking out what would’ve been a much harder team to defend in a series
10 yrs younger than Bron btw
Don’t hear windhorst fat wide back ass screaming about jokic defense.
He reminds me of 38 year old Dirk on defense
Yeah. Dirk had an excuse
Honestly this is atrocious defense. I know he’s incredible offensively but damn maybe he should kinda chill more on offense and put more energy in defense. He just looks lazy out there on top of bad positioning
At this stage in his career I don’t think conserving energy for defense is going to make a difference.
Yea defense isn’t important anyways
Of course it’s important, but he’s not going to become a good defender all of the sudden and they need his offense more than they need his defense
But those arbitrary advanced stats say that he’s one of the greatest defenders of all time…
r/NBA stans in shambles
Jokic is the World’s most celebrated traffic cone. Shame even “elite” players have to get exposed on defense.
Imagine an MVP getting hunted like that. Fraud MVP.
Ironic flair
I mean not really. Embiid is a good defender and his mvp was completely deserved
Hey, don’t worry. We saved the Pistons a seat on the flight to Cancun right next to us.
We are not the same.
You now have the playoff Tobias chain around your necks. He’ll be your tour guide for the best spots in Cancun.
We all know if Embiid had these defensive lowlights this post would have 1000 upvotes
Exactly. Embiid still plays defense when he has a bad offensive game. If Jokic has a bad offensive game, then he’s absolutely worthless.
There are 7 players I can count (with 11 MVP awards between them) this century who were bad defenders. It’s not as big a component of the award as you might imagine.
He had a terrible game with poor defense but this circlejerk ain’t gonna age well lol. I can just feel it.
He is not going to turn into a defensive jaggernaut overnight. Regardless of the result of this series, opponents will continue to hunt him. Nobody’s arguing about his offensive talent; most people are annoyed by the people turning a blind eye to his defensive issues.
NBA community murdered Harden for years for these kind of stuff.
Hell, he had 24-15-8 and he’s getting clowned on. If that’s considered a bad game from him, you know people are just reaching
If this was Luka or Harden, you know your fanbase would be the first to clown on.
I’ve been defending Luka and Harden their entire careers, I’m a big fan of them both
Hakeem would never
It’s funny when he starts pleading his case to the ref
The problem is Minnesota’s size. It’s harder to hide Jokic on a wing on defense because it means Randle and Gobert are matched up with a smaller wing on Denver’s side. You’re giving up the offensive rebound or the same paint penetration through Randle’s bully ball.
Yes please keep targeting him on defence teams don’t do it enough
Top 10’player of all time according to this sub btw, clears Shaq Hakeem etc
The metrics say he’s actually a good defender now though!
Wemby would never
The Denver perimeter guys also dont do anything to make these drives harder. The wolves guards are getting a straight line drive to the rim every time in these clips. You cant expect Jokic who has always been slow to somehow contest these layups when the wolves have acres of space to run into.
Jokic’s cronies will pretend that this isn’t the norm, create narratives to defend him, make excuses for him, and some even pretend that he actually plays defense. They will blame his teammates despite Nuggets having a solid squad, and they will move the goalposts for Jokic. They won’t hold him to the same standard as they require from other superstars, and some will even have the audacity to claim that he’s in the top 10 all-time.
Wemby is about to dominate this league for a decade. A MVP caliber player on both sides of the ball is freaky.
Mods will probably take this down lmao
This is just how the Wolves play against everyone. Having Edwards, Randle, McDaniel and Reed who can dive to the basket and are as athletic, agile and strong as almost anyone they’ll go up against is really hard to defend. Then you’ve got the brute force of Gobert just fighting for position and rebounds/put backs. Minnesota did this to the Lakers last playoffs and there was nothing they could do to stop them. AD used to be able to slow them down but there’s not a lot of players like him in the league. I don’t really see this as a knock on Jokic because the list of bigs that can do anything about this can be counted on one hand.
That’s y’all’s MVP?
Have you been under the impression people make MVP cases for him based on defense?
Wow… I knew Jokic was bad on defense but this is too much… He literally can’t even contest most of all.
It’s like a lay-up drill by Wolves players… Geez…
Jokic is actually just guiding the wolves to the rim at this point
Ant used jokic as a screener on the second play lmao
Honestly, I feel this happens to the Nuggets every single playoffs, but this time their offense hasn’t been good enough to overcome it, which is why it’s a story
This is how people think Rudy is against guards when Luka put him on skates that one time
Jok, you’re wide as a castle wall. Just step in front of the player driving. You probably aren’t blocking the shot, but it’s better than nothing.
And here you thought Luka sucked defending.
Jokic defensive lowlights back in season
He’s not a rim protector and never has been. The bigger issue is that the Denver role players were relentlessly allowing Minnesota players to drive straight to the basket.
Lol and people comparing him to like Shaq and Olajuwan?
Absolutely nobody is comparing him to Shaq or Olajuwan, let’s be serious now. Completely different archetypes of players.
Don’t let Bill Simmons see this
He’s always ready to take ball out of the basket and inbound it tho.
I think Denver needs a defensive big who can also pass and do lobs. Plumlee for Jokic,? It’s a difficult but fair trade
New strategy: “hunting” the opposing center by just attacking the basket
Some olé-ass defense. You can just go straight at Jokic with confidence knowing he’s not going to put up a real contest. Doesn’t even leave his feet half the time lmao
offense is 90% of the game. flopping is the other 10%.
Denver has needed a reliable defensive big for what like 6 years now? But all I can remember off the top of my head are Mason Plumlee, DeAndre Jordan, and Jonas Valanciunas. It really boggles me that the front office hasn’t fixed that in all this time.
This is top 3 player in the NBA, everyone. at least according to those voting MVP. Luka would have gotten 5 steals already LOL
Never let a lowlight go to waste!
Only reason jokic has 3 mvps is bc “points given up” is not a stat that can be reliably tracked
It’s insane how reactionary reddit is lmao
These people are insane man
Dude in this thread said he’d rather have Brunson lmao, there is no difference between this place and the circlejerk sub
The haters always shine brightest after a loss
Fans of a player post after they have a good game. Haters of a player post after they have a bad game.
Eh, the years that Jokic win MVP the Nuggets had the 12th, 15th and 8th ranked defense in the league while having the 7th, 6th and 5th ranked offense. So even if he’s bad on defense it isn’t killing the team and clearly his offense more than outweighs it
No its because hes historically elite on offense…
That’s not the only reason. That’s not a reason at all.
That’s called plus/minus stats, and he constantly tops those lmao.
11⁄25 MVP awards this century have been won by weak defenders.
This yall GOAT?
This is what they should’ve did to Luka and Kyrie tbh. Better late than never.
This is also how the Dubs won in 22. Just attacked him every time to get him properly gassed.
His defense is very effort dependent, like most. I think he often wants to avoid any foul trouble and thus doesn’t offer as much resistance sometimes.
Love to see it, expose bad defenders. Luke ate (lol fat) all the criticism during his finals run and now let’s make all these lazy stars get it too.
His defenders are going to pretend this isn’t happening
This seems pretty similar to the complaints about Gobert getting exposed, during previous playoff runs, by faster guards burning him on the perimeter. Doesn’t make him a bad defender. It’s just good coaching/players creating mismatches.
I’d say it’s more the opposite of Gobert. Gobert 1 on 1 is always a good matchup defensively but he is a negative on offense due to the type of offense that needs to be run around him even though he leads the league in fg%
Jokic is the best offensive big and is always a good option to run the offensive system but he needs to be protected on defense and even though there are defensive metrics that show him as a good defender, he forces more defensive responsibility on his guards because he lacks any rim deference.
The Utah/LAC series from like 5 years ago really did a number on Gobert’s reputation since LA guards kept forcing him into a switch so he had to guard them on the perimeter and then they’d put him on skates despite his best efforts. Utah didn’t seem to adjust at all to stop him from getting stuck on an island and it looked like LA had “solved” Gobert as a defender.
FOOD
To be fair to Jokic, the nuggets defensive scheme is basically demanding he play consistent good defense (not decent or passable) and he has never shown the ability to do that. Everyone is getting blown by like they’re Luka on a bum ankle. You need SOME resistance on the perimeter
To be critical of Jokic, YOU LED THE LEAGE IN REBOUNDS PER GAME. BOX YOUR MAN OUT. THAS THE ONE CONSISTENTLY GOOD THING YOU DO ON DEFENSE. GRAB THE DEFENSIVE BOARD.
The kind of defense my teammates play in rocket league :/
Dude’s a sieve