[Highlight] Jokic Defense Tape Game 3 vs Minnesota Timberwolves. The wolves shot 20⁄27 at the rim with Jokic on the court.
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Ayo Dosunmu’s grandchildren will not have to work a day in their lives because of this series
Generational belt to ass
literally outplayed shai that same day who had his playoff career high to close out the suns, shit was wild
The difference is that SGA is an athlete, which means he can keep up much better on offense and defense. Athleticism is still the single most important attribute in basketball. Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic will always be hard capped by physical genetics. The league is trending back toward investing in North American athletes for this reason, and the only players to come out of Europe will soon be physical freaks like Wemby and Giannis. The clock is ticking on the Luka and Jokic archetype.
Nah he and his children will waste all the money in 1 gen…
Least racist European
Racist for what lol? I didn’t referred to the race, also this statement is generally true for pro athletes regardless of the race or sport…
Man people like you are so fun to have around! So glad you contributed to this conversation!
You were the funniest of the brood instead.
I’m curious why you think that? Would you care to elaborate on your certainly well thought out position based on logical analysis?
There are several studies that shows that on average professional athletes end up wasting all their wealth in 1 generation. I mean, y’all treating it like it is the first time you hear about pro athletes regressing to average life…
I know this is supposed to be an attack on Jokic for his ranking, but I’m going to choose to talk about how much I love Ayo in these clips. Zero nonsense on the court, his offense is either taking high efficiency 3’s or just taking it straight-line to the basket. Decent defender and passer, but I feel like his main value add is that he’s just so no-nonsense out there. Dude plays within himself.
100%, and it’s why I love him so much. We’ve watched so many low IQ players over the years (D-lo, Randle) who dribble dribble dribble take a terrible shot. Ayo goes right to the basket or kicks out. No wasting time
Dribble dribble dribble pass the grenade was was Teague his entire time with us.
That’s the problem!
Teague was really out there playing MyCareer
He deadass even admitted it himself in one of his podcast eps lol (iirc)
Huge trade by the Wolves dumping Dillingham, the Bulls were idiots.
just to throw a wrench in all this, one thing he was excited about coming to MN was a chance to take long 2s:
https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1rxczx1/ayo_dosunmu_in_chicago_midrange_shots_was_really/
ofc not every long 2 is a “terrible shot,” but he doesn’t necessarily want to be some efficiency paragon. I trust Finch and Ayo to negotiate that because Finch is good about allowing guys to do what they’re good at.
I think he’s got real 6MOTY potential. Eyes are gonna be on Minny with LaMelo and Ant. People are gonna remember this great series from him
Don’t forgot he’s the best fast break scorer in the team
Damn near the entire roster is elite on the break now.
That has to be Ant, right? Far and away the most athletic, explosive athlete on the team.
If he actually runs, yes. But Ant doesnt really initiate fast breaks very much.
maybe he will when his point guard isn’t eligible for medicare
^^^^^I ^^^^^Miss ^^^^^You ^^^^^Mike
Ant doesn’t really push the tempo and get us into fast breaks.
TJ Shannon, Ayo and Bones all are better on the break than Ant IMO.
Jaden and Rudy are there too. They both love to run
Basically never runs unless its off a steal
You’d think, but Ant really hasn’t been much of a transition guy so far in his career. I imagine that’ll change with this new roster, though.
Ant and Kuminga on the wings with Lamelo running the break has the potential to be really fun
Definitely with Melo handling the ball, Ant will have lots of opportunities to leak for the break
ayo made a huge fan out of me this series. he’s here to do his job and he does it super fucking well
Treat him well he’s amazing. I miss him on this team.
There’s something to the quickness of Basketball that allows them to play sub consciously free and above their skill level.
that’s my boy!
Snoot me in the head with a gum
Your team took apart Denver because it was specifically constructed to take the Nuggets soul. Now that won’t help you against SA/OKC but if you hate the city of Denver, its a great team to root for.
Gobert was on the team before the nuggets won anything. KAT was traded away after being the key piece to stopping the nuggets repeat attempt. What players were acquired specifically to beat the Nuggets?
Denver has a championship to show in past 5 years wolves have done shit ever
Jaden McDaniels told them the game plan and it still worked.
So much of defending is about being in a posture and position to act, I just don’t see it with Jokic here (and I really love him, but it’s inexcusable).
Lowlight posts this early in the morning bro? Damn
It’s because of that ranking post that dropped an hour or two ago
It’s also because of that post saying that it’s because Jokic never recovered from his injury
That was after this but nice try man 😭
Oh are we taking injuries into account for performances now?
Targeting Jokic specifically for his defense is kind of wild. Denver held Minnesota below their regular season ORTG
They lost because they shot the 3 like shit. They were the best 3pt shooting team in the regular season and had the worst open 3pt% in the playoffs.
No mention of the injuries to the Wolves?
Minnesota below their regular season ORTG might be partially due to losing their starting backcourt for part of the series, right? Or are we going to act like they were firing on full cylinders the whole time and the Nuggets aura was stopping them?
There’s a lot to target Jokic for in that series. He was awful for someone who is supposed to be a best in the world type player. Got his ass whooped by a team that was fucked by injuries
The lost because every single guard/wing in Minnesota’s rotation was more athletic than every single guard/wing in Denver’s rotation. Murray, Braun, and Cam Johnson make Ayo and Terrence Shannon Jr look like prime DWade.
Ant didn’t even finish the series, Donte?
The first clip is a guard pulling up from three from 27 feet lmao. This really is the worst fanbase in all of sports.
This sub is like if everyone on r/NFL took the “Mahomes will regress to the mean” post seriously.
They’re all bad defenders
Jaden’s quote rings true here. Jokic is not the only one showing bad defense in these clips. The perimeter defenders needed to provide some resistance.
Yeah he was left out to dry a few times
It’s hilarious how this was supposed to be bait from u/grittynwitty, yet it’s all Wolves fans who’re providing nuanced takes on the situation.
Watson who was their best wing defender missed the series then left town. They replaced him with Grandpa DeRozen. I don’t think it is gonna get better for them unless Braun has a major glow-up. AG’s hamstrings aren’t gonna magically become healthy after being pulled pork the last few years.
Watson catching DNP ($$$) was only part of it.
Braun delayed surgery and tried to play through torn ligaments all year, AG’s finishing another season below the rim, the Jamal/Bruce/THJ trio had been overworked since February.
Look at how many of these clips start with someone just blowing by the perimeter defense without even a hint of resistance. These problems are dead legs on the perimeter far more than lackadaisical Jokic defense. When they had 2 big wings to switch the action with, they were shutting down the Wolves offense with Jokic not even being tested.
If you switched Jokic and Gobert’s uniforms in this set of clips, he’s going to just be a longer dude who is equally out of position, getting ran at faster than anyone can even call out, “I’m beat!,” much less let you react to it.
And it’s not just Jokic caught in this cascade. If Jokic isn’t getting enough time to rotate to the threat, that’s not much more time for Cam/Spence to rotate in behind Jokic to box out, and suddenly they have a fresh 24 seconds because your 6’8” wing tried to keep Gobert and Naz off the boards.
We’d just rather hang it all on Jokic.
Also they brought in Cam Johnson for defensive upside vs MPJ but he has been similar on defense and mucu worse on offense… the Nuggets are so cooked that they need to rebuild already imho. They had a window from 2019 to 2025 (2026 as a stretch). It’s over.
Jokic is not good but everyone one of these clips is someone running in a straight line to the hoop with no resistance
In large part due to him not stepping up to screens at all and then staying flat footed on a drive to the basket
That kind of defense every bigs but prime AD did, or smaller one like Draymond. It is not on Jokic really. Sure he could have been better blocking some of those shots, but I guess unless you have Wemby, Chet (unsure about him also), Mobley or Gobert you won’t see many other bigs doing better in such situations in 2026.
You know he has his own job on defense too, right?
Every time he steps up to do someone else’s job, the lob and offensive glass is there for a 7 footer over a 6’8” wing. Who probably hasn’t had enough time to even make it there to box him out of the dunker’s spot since we’re talking about the defense having the reaction time of a center stepping up to the first breakdown of the defense to make such a secondary rotation.
Most perimeter defenders in the NBA need some help. Jokic is just standing in a deep drop before the screen even happens, and then doesn’t really contest when the driver actually gets to him.
Yes, because he’s not Anthony Davis and, like most bigs, can’t throw himself halfway across the floor to grab the rebound after stepping up to contest a shot. The Nuggets were running 6’7” 225lbs Spencer Jones as the power forward this series, Gobert and Naz Reid would have eaten us alive if Jokic goes up there. Not to mention the fact that if the perimeter defender doesn’t recover in that situation, the attacker just blows by Jokic because his momentum is going in the wrong direction.
Issue is he’s the damn center. His job is to be 7 feet tall and contest shots at the rim. It’s not like he’s rotating weak side late, he’s literally at the rim already there when they attack and he did nothing
The alternative is just fouling and not being able to stay on the court at all. He’s just not a shot blocker, he can’t get high enough.
Ah yes the only two options: give up open layups and dunks or foul. Clearly no other way to play the game
If nearly 40 year old Tim Duncan who couldn’t jump anymore after several major knee injuries could still be an effective defender it’s not insane to ask a 7 foot center in his prime to maybe put in some more effort
This is a terrible conception of how basketball works dude. If the Nuggets had a 4 like Chet they wouldn’t have any issue at all (maybe just making shots…).
I agree that if you put a 7’1 player who came in 2nd to Wembanyama for DPOY next to Jokic it’s not a problem
Even if he had a 4 like Chet he’s still a 7 foot traffic cone teams will attack relentlessly. He could have 4 all nba defenders around him and they’d still have the issue of a 7 foot traffic cone who can’t protect the rim as their anchor.
Nah this is incredibly simple basketball concepts that Jokic Stan’s refuse to reconcile with. Your center being an absolute bum on defense is a massive handicap. It’s the most important defensive position on the floor
So you didn’t watch the clip, got it.
No actually you didn’t. Literally second play on the clip Jokic under the rim watching a guy run at him and didn’t stop him from getting a layup.
That’s not what the clip shows at all. Jokic is in good position against his man for most shown in this vid, it’s the other players getting beat off the dribble.
The Nuggets defense revolves around Aaron Gordon. When he’s not on the court or playing injured, the rest of the team can’t make up for it.
Seems like Gordon’s the MVP of the Nuggets if he covers for 4 teammates and if the offense needs him for his cutting and shooting
Yeah Nuggets fans treat Gordon like he is the basketball savior. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a really strong role player, but he’s the 3rd best player on that team. Good teams find ways to win, just like MN did when they went down their entire front court.
The way Nuggets fans talk about Aaron Gordon has me convinced he is a better player than Jokic. Aaron Gordon is presented as this defensive anchor capable of making up for 4 godawful defenders while being an amazing complementary offensive threat next to a playmaker. If that’s anyone’s read of Aaron Gordon, they should probably make the argument he clears Jokic.
Jokic’s bad on defense? Gordon covers for them. He’s the whole scheme.
Jokic has a bad game (like all players do)? It’s because Gordon spaces the floor so well and he’s a cutting threat.
Jokic makes any error? The scheme relies on Gordon
Idk bro Aaron Gordon might be the actual superstar of the Nuggets
I think its because he is their legit only player with above average athleticism.
Can’t believe people are still trotting this out.
First, 20 for 27 is 74%. That sounds super high, but it’s very normal. Minnesota shot 72% at the rim during the season, and the league as a whole shot 70%. Denver shot 71% at the rim against the Wolves that series despite Gobert’s presence.
Second, the Wolves were 8 for 11 at the rim in 13 minutes with Jokic on the bench that game, which is very similar.
Third, most importantly, the whole narrative about Denver’s defense being awful that series is nonsense. Minnesota’s 114 ORTG that series was below both their own regular season ORTG (116) and Denver’s regular season DRTG (117). Denver lost because they couldn’t score, struggling to a 109 ORTG after leading the league with a 123 ORTG in the regular season.
Ant was hobbled and straight up missed the last two games, Donte tore his Achilles mid series. Perhaps that’d be useful context?
I also didn’t mention that Gordon was hobbled and missed half the series, or that Watson missed the whole series.
Those guys combined don’t make up the value of Ant Edwards. Donte is their best or second best shooter. Nuggets still had their two best offensive players. It’s not apples to apples
Classic example of someone looking at stats but not watching the games. Someone with severe cataracts would’ve been able to see how bad that defense was.
Bad defense turns into stagnant offense when you don’t get kick outs or transition opportunities.
Your argument is incoherent.
Denver allowed fewer points per possession in the playoffs than in the regular season. Their regular season defense was bad, yet they were still the best offensive team in the league.
Your argument is essentially that Denver’s bad defense doesn’t show up in their DRTG but does show up in their ORTG.
The idea that their bad defense in the playoffs caused their bad offense is just a desperate attempt to support a narrative that has no factual basis.
14% of Denver’s regular season possessions were transition. 14% of Denver’s playoff possessions were transition.
Lol you strike me as someone that really prides themselves in trying to be smarter than other people.
Unfortunately your own argument proves what everyone said about that series. Denver was a bottom-10 defense during the regular season and were dead last in defensive rating for western teams that made the playoffs. So yes, that issue always existed for Denver and was ultimately the reason they got bounced from the playoffs. Good playoff teams crush your weaknesses and that is what Minnesota did.
If you would’ve just listened to Jaden “they’re all bad defenders” McDaniels, we wouldn’t have had to waste this time arguing.
There’s a difference between 74% overall as a team and a center allowing an absurdly high number, even 65%+ is bad which Jokic allows year after year, centers do not allow that, Jokic is a historically bad rim protector
That’s why help defense is so important, when a center can deter shots at the rim it makes a teams defense so much because a guards and wings are usually not protecting the rim
Just look at this
Add in the bad perimeter defenders it becomes a shitshow
Jokici is massively flawed for that, he also cannot switch on anyone because he’s so slow, he plays drop coverage without even protecting the rim to get a few useless defensive boards and steals which contribute nothing to overall team defense
When you’re worse than Sabonis at protecting the rim you are fucking historically shit
There’s a difference between 74% overall as a team and a center allowing an absurdly high number
This post is about a team allowing a very normal number. Literally 19⁄27 would have been exactly league average.
Nothing in your comment is responsive to my comment.
Jokic is not a good rim protector, and Denver is not a good defensive team. But that’s not why the lost game 3 or that series.
The biggest issue for the Nuggets in the playoffs post championship is that Jokic cant hit 3s like he used to
Stop it with the facts, feelings only here
[deleted]
Exactly. Jokic isn’t a good defender or rim protector but most of these plays the Wolves have a complete blow by on the perimeter and they are running full speed at Jokic. These lowlight posts are dumb.
Not a whole lot jokic can do when they have a wide open runway at him every time. If he contests every one aggressively he 100% fouls out.
I honestly don’t understand how the Nuggets are this bad on defense year after year. It’s genuinely infuriating to watch the entire team just kind of hang out on defense.
They built the worst team around Jokic and without Gordon out there the team is a joke.
Jamal Murray is ass. I will say it every time these threads get posted
A wizards fan would know
Wow you got me dude
I miss Donte. he is a huge part of our team.
Totally. Wondering if Dante’s little hop at about 1:30 minutes on the video was part of what led to the subsequent tear.
we’ll have him back soon
“They’re all bad defenders” - Jaden Mcdaniels
I mean, half of those baskets are because he stays low on Gobert screens, and that’s 100% a coach’s decision, not him being lazy. An other big portion is him being the help defender and getting beaten 2 on 1, which is meh, not that bad. And there are a bunch of legit good contests (some go in, some miss).
Of course, there are a few tragic ones, like the one when he falls asleep under the rim in zone, but overall this tape doesn’t say that much about his defense.
Lol begun the highlight/lowlight wars have begun
But legit some of the worst defense I’ve ever seen from Jokic. It’s why a 5 to be a bad protector means they got to be extraordinary on offense lol.
Textbook confirmation bias lmao, he only had like 4-5 shitty contests in this video, the rest were his teammates making mistakes or the wolves players making tough shots.
The bigs job is literally to help on funnels. It doesn’t work when the center is trash
Except 90% of bigs cannot provide much more help than Jokic is doing here. If the typical big steps up to a screen where their perimeter defender gets cleaned out, they’re giving up a layup for free. Hell, this isn’t even considering the fact that Denver didn’t have a true PF this series, we were playing 6’7” 225lbs Spencer Jones at the 4 and he’s not fighting Gobert on the boards.
These are clips of Jokic in drop to defend drives that get past the first line. And then not contesting the drives at all
I’m a homer, but also a lot of these don’t seem like jokic’s fault at all? Like I’m biased but how exactly is bones breaking Spencer’s ankles and hitting a deep 3 30 feet away from jokic his fault?
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1wp1rut/jokic_never_fully_recovered_from_his_injury_last/
But bro it’s only because Jokic didn’t recover from his injury
Did he not?
He was far worse after his injury. Pre-injury Jokic for the first 30 games was the best player I’ve ever seen.
Nuggets had an average playoff defense in this series WITHOUT their two best defenders.
Now imagine how good their defense would be if they had even average rim protection
Probs not that good considering their defense personnel is still horrible
Also, would that hypothetical be an elite defensive rebounder and elite at positioning? Because that’s why Jokic grades so well in defensive metrics
They only played a single team. It’s a bit disingenuous to extrapolate a single matchup against league averages
Glad people are noticing it is, Jokic stans eating that up like it is some amazing feat.
Never called it an amazing feat. just not the reason they lost the series
Wrong. Facts exist, average against all playoff teams last season is average.
I mean this post is literally hating on Jokic’s defense.
If Jokic was so bad on defense, how did they manage without an average playoff defense with their two best defenders hurt and literally zero good defenders on their team?
Almost as if the other team’s best offensive players were out injured 🤯
Again comparing averages when they only played a singular team is a bad argument. The Wolves missing their 29 ppg scorer probably factored into that
Because wolves were playing with their C team. If they had Ant, Donte the full series, they would have been mauled with their jump shooting. This C team was disastrous in jump shooting, and was surviving with points in the paint.
And that is wild that a C team won with assaulting the paint, and the nuggets let them.
Obviously true, unless ofc you mindlessly repeat narratives instead of analyzing what actually happened, as the anti-Jokic contingent here does.
Genuinely asking what an average playoff defense means in this context?
Average for the first round, Average compared to the regular season? Can you link whatever you’re saying, I am shocked but if it’s average of all playoff teams in 2026 I guess I’m not shocked since that’s 2⁄3 of the league.
You are pathetic man
They played a team missing their starting back court and then gave up 110 in game 6 while Dosunmu was out lmao.
You didn’t answer the question?
If jokic is so bad at defense, and denver had no good defenders on the court, why couldn’t minnesota score a lot of points on them?
even with minnesota’s injuries, they still couldn’t score much? They only had 105 in game 1 when they were at their healthiest
Minnesota couldn’t score a lot because they’re playing with a majority of backups and their star player was out? That feels pretty self explanatory. The fact they scored an average amount of points without half their starters is pretty telling about how bad the defense was lol.
Average in the playoffs doesnt mean anything. There are sixteen teams if you are average, you are losing in the first round still. Only eight teams go on.
It shows denver didn’t have a bad defense tho? it was literally average
That’s not really how it works, the sample sizes are small and there’s a huge gap between different offenses. The Knicks, thunder, spurs, etc were stunting on fools, and that throws off the numbers.
They had the worst defensive rating of any team that didn’t run into one of the offensive juggernauts, despite playing a team missing it’s most efficient scorers. If you look at the wolves ORTG in the nuggets series it would be the 4th best in the playoffs.
Tbf I think this is by far the worst he has ever looked post bubble. He has never been a great defender but this year ( in part because no Watson or Gordon) he was as bad as people used to clown him fora few years ago.
lol people are bothered by the list apparently
No matter who got the #1 nod, there was going to be someone to post the lowlights
One of the best offensive players I’ve ever seen but also a terrible defender for a center
He’s not terrible. He’s strong and able to box out other centers. He’s a terrible rim protector. The goal of their defense is to prevent drives to the hoop, make them take long shots, box out, and rebound. Minnesota was able to get past every perimeter defender.
The goal of their defense is to prevent drives to the hoop, make them take long shots, box out, and rebound.
I agree with you, which makes every perimeter defender look even more egregious in this clip compilation. They look like the Gobert jazz out there: die on every screen, lightly shade the ball handler in whichever direction Rudy asks yo uto. But Quin Snyder did that on purpose, it looks much worse when that’s not the plan and you don’t have the personnel for it
The fact that he is one of the best rebounders in the NBA does severely limit the damage that his lack of rim protection brings. Their biggest issue in the playoffs is that Jokic cant hit 3s at a high clip anymore and just gets exhausted and takes too many 3s anyways.
imagine Jamal Murray being your starting point guard and the goal of your defense is to prevent drives lmao
How did minnesota not manage an above average playoff against denver then?
Assume you mean an above average offense in that series, Because our starting backcourt missed half the series, and our starting frontcourt consisted of Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert.
But denver was out their two best defenders too?
And DDV was the only person who missed half the series. Ant played 4 games and Ayo played 5.
So? They don’t even need to have an above average offense to beat denver, that’s how bad the nuggets defense is.
Mate you are very hypocritical you whining Jokic played injured and here you are parading Ant playing like he was 100% healthy cmon now.
What striking to me is how much of Jokić‘s defense is predicated on swiping down at the ball or a late high contest. He has better technique against Gobert one-on-one.l even if the Frenchman wins several of these battles.
But it’s a striking difference compared to better defensive centers in the league who are putting a body on players as they come into the lane to affect their pick up points and alter their shot timing. And importantly, the best defensive bigs are great at doing multiple things at once - contesting the shot with one hand while disrupting a passing angle with the other or swiping down at the ball well also getting a contest at the top. Jokić only ever does one of these at any time which is just not good enough against good slashers that the Wolves have in spades.
About 8-9 of those that I wouldn’t blame on Jokic. And his defense on those gobert hooks were actually decent. But yeah, if you actually attack with any speed he basically won’t contest or won’t be able to get in position to contest
He looks tired
Notice how many times the perimeter defender gets absolutely blown by, which has always been a problem for the Nuggets As a Nuggets fan, I’d rather him let these guys go on a lot of these because the second he gets two fouls in the first quarter, the game gets out of hand fast.
You have to give credit to the Twolves here, but as shown Jokic’s defense isn’t that bad in this clip. Game was over early, Wolves led by 22 at the half on 52% shooting.
Everyone just waited for Jokic to play injured to share their stupid takes, fat Larry bird is better than all your favorite players, accept it and enjoy the show. Yes his defense is not elite
This says a lot more about Denvers perimeter defense than anything. Why you getting beat off the dribble by Ayo, and Mcdaniels, and outsped by Randle it says a lot. Sure some of these, he needs to be in the pick and roll action more and he simply doesnt have the footspeed to be able to cover the ball handler on a potential pull up and be able to roll to the rim in defense but man Murray looks like ass and does strawther, amd Brown didnt exactly look lockdown either but man it looks worse when you dont have an idk a Gobert protecting the back line
Most of these aren’t even on Jokic tbh. He’s a near zero on his help and rim protection, but the Nuggets perimeter defender are just letting everybody blow by them.
It’s just like what Draymond said about Harden and the Cavs. Harden may be a bad defender, but the Cavs aren’t doing him any favors conceding every switch. Dray would’ve fought through all those screens to prevent a switch on Curry.
Watched it once focusing on Jokic, then a second time watching guards/perimeter defenders. This team got out coached and out schemed. These are mostly clips of perimeter defenders getting blown by or screened at the 3 point line with the a slasher getting a full head of steam coming at Joker in the paint. This ain’t the kind of setup Dream had to deal with, Joker is in a position to lose at that point. In today’s NBA there’s almost nothing he can do at the point without drawing a foul in that situation. Best thing he did is not foul out. The coach is diabolical for not changing the defensive scheme at any point when it clearly wasn’t working.
You can’t coach athleticism tho. The nuggets are a bunch stiffs and the wolves are pretty athletic throughout their whole rotation. The reason Ayo looks like prime dwade is because cam Johnson’s foot speed is closer to Kyle Korver than KCP.
They could send help from the corner. Everyone except Dosunmu (and Divincenzo before his injury) was shooting horrible from 3.
Jokic can’t do everything man. Sure he got defensive liabilities but look the rest of Denver team. Other than AG, rest are bums on high paycheck who shoots 3s. 3 and No D and getting paid bro. Jokic needs help
Seems like a lot of times he’s making the business decision to avoid fouling so he can stay on the court. Which, given how thin the Nuggets are, makes sense.
Food
These posts are so cringe
majority of these aren’t even Jokic’s fault 😭
Mods only let the jokic hate stay up lmao
seriously bro like am i going crazy with these bots, he literally only had like 4 shitty contests out of the whole video the rest were his teammates making mistakes or him genuinely contesting the shot well and the wolves players just hitting tough shots
The first clip is literally a guard pulling up from three from 27 feet. This is truly the dumbest sports sub on Reddit.
thanks bro i’m genuinely losing my mind
i tried to post something positive for Jokic and it was just getting hated. This post majority isn’t even his fault 😭
If you have anything positive to post about Jokic, please do this is wild lol
what do you think “bot” means
TBF he just doesn’t have the conditioning to defend the rim the entire game and also put the offensive work in that he does.
I think it’s interesting that when Gobert gets the iso, Jokic tries pretty hard.
Jokic doesn’t even try contesting when there’s a guard or wing with a head start coming at him, but he’s fine 1 on 1 vs centers in the post or in space (if the center is terrible)
Ahhh this old casual takes. If you watch Jokic regularly you can see the dude is very often pushing the break, inbounding scored ball at breakneck speeds, and in general trying to out run his defender. He also plays huge minutes well over 70 games most seasons. Ask a Laker how Jokic broke AD, he pushed pace from the tip. Conditioning has fuck all to do with Jokic’s rim defense. Here are the three reasons his front line d sucks: his hips don’t turn fast enough. 2. He don’t jump high or fast enough. 3. He opts out of challenges to save his foul count.
That floater Rudy hit on him in G7 2024 still lives in his head rent free
In all seriousness this is a team issue, Jokic looks bad here but like others have said the rest of the team can’t just let guys have these open runs at him
This shit pisses me off. If Jokic slides to Ayo then Rudy is open for the lob, and he only gets 5 fouls.I’m not saying Jokic is the best defender, and he looked like he gave up in the series, but too much of the offense depends on him for him to be hacking at cutters.The coaches had no answers, and it’s really on them, and the perimeter defenders to keep him out of a loose-loose situation.
But what about that Denver perimeter defense? If you dont have rim protection you need at least perimeter defending. Nuggets dont have any.
Your team would literally give up any single player on their roster (or multiple) in order to land Jokic.
i would cry if wolves traded ant for jokic straight up
Jokic and Luka probably the only players in the NBA that could neutralize Gobert’s offensive absence. Having said that, he’s a lot of fun to watch and younger, wouldn’t make sense.
I think Ball will be huge for unlocking more Rudy. Not to jokic or Luka levels of course but it will be interesting to see
People are not going to like to hear this but honestly the defense wasn’t even Denver’s biggest problem. It’s the complete collapse of their offense from being the best in the league to below average in the playoffs. So many games they couldn’t score even 100 points. If they had even half of the shooting performance the Knicks had they would’ve been fine regardless of their bad defense.
Imagine waking up one day in the month of September and saying “I’m going to post another video about Jokics performance during the timberwolves series last April”
first offseason?
Yeah imagine posting about the last playoff performance by the #1 ranked player going into the season
It wasn’t posted in good faith though. Majority of these clips aren’t even Jokic’s fault lol
OP posted this right after the ESPN article: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50015167/nba-rank-2026-players-10-1-featuring-wembanyama-sga-jokic-brunson-luka-more
I just did. Now what?
Now we decide who gets to do it next week
Please tell us more about your ring
BBQ Chicken
Of course a new bot account posts this today.
I was with Jokic till I saw Gobert get an and 1 on him
Apparently, he is the best, yet it is the best defensive teams that win.
he won a ring when he had some good perimeter defense around him
The team was better, the competition terrible, but his defense and 3pt shooting in the 2023 playoffs is what was the deciding factor imo. Jokic had some incredible defensive games in the finals which he never replicated after. Might be because of the team structure, but it’s partially just his play.
yes, because he wasn’t hung out to dry by his teammates playing bad perimeter defense.
he’s not a bad defender, his positioning and reach are top-tier. he can NOT slide around covering up his teammates mistakes as a rim protector like Gobert. only haters fail to understand this.
it’s a fair trade off for being one of, if not THE, the offensive GOATs
He’s actually not too bad in terms of hip mobility, especially at his size and weight, but he has no vertical ability and no shot blocking or rim deterring presence at all. At his worst (like the Wolves series) he’s just a traffic cone. Again, it’s partially his limitations, and partially the team being bad.
He’s a center. He’s supposed to be the anchor.
He’s a fucking horrible defender. He’s literally sitting under the rim letting dudes make layups over his head repeatedly. You can watch the video above and watch him constantly be sitting under the rim getting attacked.
Such an offensive goat Alex Caruso was able to shut him down for a close out game
Sure when he faced 2 play in teams and LeBron/AD/butler/herro/macdainels/naz ried were all injured or out they won a title. Since then he’s been flaming out repeatedly and had a ton of horrible games
Its funny i remember at the time people saying he beat more all time players on a playoff run than anyone ever had before. Butler, Bam, Lebron, AD, Durant, Booker, Cp3, Ant, and Gobert is a wild list to go through.
But people want to act like those teams were bad because they had injuries in the regular season, meanwhile if the Kings and Grizzlies had beaten the lower seeds people would have shit on Jokic for beating them to make the finals. Cant win lol.
The only real Jokic flame out was last year. Before that they lost in 7 to OKC(might win if AG doesnt get hurt), and 7 to the wolves(This one is arguable)
Sure is a wild list except when you take into account literally half of them were injured
>they had injuries in the regular season
They were hurt in the post season and 2 of them were play in teams. They were bad both regular season and mid in the playoffs. Those were the lower seed bad teams?
Nuggets were playing like no good defenders tbf. Put jokic on the thunder and watch all his deficiencies disappear
Great game. Bonus it was on Prime and I didn’t have to listen to Doris
That’s the number 1 player in the NBA according to ESPN
Jokic can’t be the best player in the NBA when he’s a defensive liability and there are others who can match his production and strength defensive liability
Who matches Jokic’s production?
I remember people really tried arguing that Jokic defense wasn’t bad 🤣🤣🤣🤣 like bro we know what we saw man
Ayo was frying his ass
To be fair Julius Randle also plays matador rim defense lol every time someone would go at him I’d yell Toro!
All the bad defender.
Man Julius is so overrated.
He missed because he was so shocked that Jokic didn’t contest him😭
He doesn’t have the foot speed to be a good on-ball defender, but he had 13 defensive rebounds and 2 steals in this game. He also leads the league for most steals this decade. I think people overstate his defensive shortcomings by ignoring his contribution to defensive rebounding, steals, and deflections.
The opposite of Bill Russell.
You know what they decided was the solution to this problem was in this off season? Hope Aaron Gordon’s knees aren’t tendernism this season, lose their one of their best defensive players and get DEMAR DEROZAN FOR DEFENSE. I think that they are going to have a wonderful time defensively
We would see these clips on repeat every week but there is still people who thinks Jokic wont get criticized.
Yeah, sure.
It boggles my mind that people think Denver should be relieved about Minnesota’s offseason moves. Adding a lob throwing point guard and another hyper athletic wing, neither of which Denver’s defenders will be able to stay in front of. It’s all bad news for them this season
Jokic just wants to get rebounds. He might as well be 6’2 as a rim protector, Vucevic has the same problem which is why he got benched
As a fellow Serbian it is painful to watch Jokic in this clip cause we Serbians like to boast ourself how good defenders we have in national team and there is Joker doing opposite of that, still i love him like he is my brother and hope he raise defensive effort to acceptable level.
Any time Rudy starts to dribble the ball towards the basket, I sit upright in my chair lmao.
There’s on in here where he’s backing up Jokic towards the basket, spinning and pivoting only to get off a great shot.
A very rare thing to see 😆