Even more so than any guard because hes a center. Thats the most important position for defense and guy shoot 60-70 from there

Hey, hey, leave our dead weight asset out of this. We aren’t bothering anyone.

well obviously this is the fault of low IQ American AAU development. those WHITE bigs only cares about chucking on offense

This is such a funny take. The Timberwolves shot 47.3% from the field and 26.5% on 34 3 point attempts for an offensive rating below their season average.

The Nuggets didn’t lose because their offense couldn’t score enough to make up for their bad defense. They lost because their offense was atrocious.

>Jokic is one of the best offensive players ever

didn’t look like it

This is hilarious 😂

Such a generational offensive talent that he runs two offenses at once

The late great Ray Williams, whose scoring and turnover skills were both elite, was once described by a writer (Bob Ryan?) as having the singular ability to keep both teams in the game at the same time. Jokic is a different pew in the same church.

I hate when people try to use dumb, obscure or nonsensical stats to dispute what our literal eyes can see. Not to say that advanced stats aren’t bad and don’t have a place, because they do, but its like what KD said, “Who the fuck wants to look at graphs while having a hoop convo?”

I love Jokic. I love his game. He makes basketball beautiful to watch. He’s my favourite player to watch in the last 10 years, hell, probably the last 20. But even I, the Jokic stan of all Jokic stans, think it’s insane to call him anything other that a terrible defender. He rebounds well and can be a pain in passing lanes occasionally, but he’s just horrendous at preventing the ball going in the hoop, and almost never tries.

He’s also really good at controlling the boards at least, so on a miss there’s a good chance that the possession ends.

Other than that though it’s a bit disappointing that other players who have shortcomings on the defensive end get lots of flak for it but Jokic constantly gets a pass from the NBA mediasphere.

His offensive production definitely more than overcomes his defensive deficiencies but they are very real.

Jokic’s motor is mostly spent on carrying offense. And the added bulk this year is not helping.

More depth on offense (a third guy who can create shots) and defense (POA guard and rim protector foward) for the Nuggets would plug in some holes.

This comment will float into the Reddit ether.

He’s Steven Adams, he clogs the paint and grabs boards, shoves ppl around and occasional deflection. Ppl will either appreciate the things he does well or not. It’s good to remember analytics aren’t perfect and neither are our natural instincts as basketball watchers.

Fans will highlight the good things he does and block out the easy layups and non-fans will have every matador he does seared in to their brains. Fact is he just played a god awful offensive game, team scored like 90 points and ppl are still fixated on his defense.

The analytics vs the visual will never coalesce and the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle.

The Wolves actually looked confused as to what to do on offense when he was on the bench because they had no one to attack.

Reminds me of when Lebron and the Cavs would run hunt Steph down in the finals

Jokic is incredible and (during the regular season) the way he dictates the offense is on a level I’ve maybe only seen 5 other times in my lifetime.

That said the way the NBA “intelligencia” talks about him, you think he was running over the league like prime Jordan or prime Shaq. It’s hilarious whenever someone tries to justify that Jokic would be better to build around than prime Shaq. Great as he is, it’s not close. He’s not on the Duncan, Shaq, Kareem level of big man, he just doesn’t control the game on both ends good enough.

Bro is acting like Jokic hasn’t been a top 2 MVP candidate for 6 years after one game lmao.

You’re referencing his bad defense and saying people shouldn’t be comparing him to prime Curry in the same comment? Curry has never been considered a good defender

There’s a reason he went so low in the draft. He should’ve been undrafted. He’s the worst player in the NBA, realistically he deserves to playing in like the 3rd division of some Polish league but somehow ended up in the NBA.

Softest title run on the modern era. Didn’t face a single 50 win team and played an 8 seed in the finals somehow.

They went 16-4 in the playoffs that run. Those athletic slashing teams you’re referencing were losing to 8 seed Miami and the ancient Lakers.

Because it’s the NBA & we’re in the era of the most talented guards/forwards ever.

Even OKC doesn’t exactly stop players from getting to the rim, it’s just they have guys actually can contest & perimeter players who don’t make it easy.

Even if Braun stops ANT from driving for 20 seconds of the shot clock, that 1 second he got by is all Ant needs because they have literally 0 help on the floor.

This. It’s not just Jokic’s fault.

Cleveland has Mobley and Allen back there and are giving up more paint points than any team besides Denver this playoffs - because their guards just let anything in.