Nikola Jokic’s most impressive raw statistical season may never be replicated. The Nuggets are perfectly fine with that.
They recognize that he’s one of the most gifted scorers in the NBA. They’re more than happy to indulge that skill when a matchup or a defensive coverage calls for it. (They have plenty in the last week.) But they also know his greatest strength — their greatest strength as a team — is engineering easy offense by committee, by means of motion and creativity.
If they’re going to average 120 points anyway, might as well do it with a more balanced scoring diet than last season, when Jokic set a career-high with 29.6 per game but none of his teammates were within eight of him.
Jokic is taking 15 shots per game, 4.5 fewer than yesteryear and the second-fewest since he started winning MVPs.
He didn’t overtake Jamal Murray as the Nuggets’ leading scorer until their seventh game of the season, after a 33-point performance against a Miami Heat frontcourt that was woefully undersized and inexperienced the instant Bam Adebayo exited with a foot injury. Entering a three-game road trip this week, the Nuggets had the third-best offense in the NBA behind Jokic’s 12 assists per game. It hasn’t mattered that his points are down to 25.2; he has two other teammates exceeding 20.
By design? Not entirely. Jokic is basketball’s preeminent read-the-game decision-maker, after all. Except for this detail, outlined recently by first-year coach David Adelman.
“If we can get through games without having to post him up 25 times, I think that’s beneficial for us and his body,” Adelman said. “But if the game demands it, he will. And I think he’ll score like he needs to. But staying in the split game and the elbow game, it can get redundant, but I think it keeps everybody involved. And he keeps everybody involved anyway, because he’ll get doubled in the post or whatever it is. But (we’re) trying to play that team game as much as we can.”
Indeed, Jokic has been operating out of the high post above the free-throw line more frequently, rather than parking on the lower block as a default. Split actions have been accentuated as an early staple of the Adelman regime — reminiscent of his father’s elbow-entry offenses — with the three-time MVP center playing puppet master from the middle of the floor.
Aside from the fact that it’s effective, the court position from which Jokic operates is more broadly representative of Adelman’s regular-season philosophy. To spam post-ups every game in November would be to sprint the first mile of a marathon.
“To be honest, I don’t really think that I can feel, ‘Is it four post-ups or six post-ups?'” said Jokic, who has never been fond of acknowledging the slightest possibility of fatigue. “Sometimes it’s not even a post-up (when I go closer to the basket). Sometimes it’s just like, ducking in. Sometimes in transition, I’m just gonna find the space and seal my guy. So it depends on the game, the opponent.”
He might not notice the difference, but that’s what coaches are for.
“Sometimes the isolation stuff is old-school NBA, and you have to go there,” Adelman said. “He’s incredible. He’s one of the best post-up players I’ve ever seen. But I have to worry about the wear-and-tear of his body, too. That’s a responsibility I have.”
Part of the equation is Denver’s improved depth. In many cases last season, the four players sharing the court with Jokic showed him deference to a fault, especially late in close games. The Nuggets became prone to operating with one-dimensional caution, hesitating to shoot open 3s, immediately looking to return the ball to Jokic in the post and subsequently telegraphing entry passes. Defenses fronted him, double-teamed him down low, dared Denver to win games outside of the paint.
With a more complete roster to foster off-ball motion, Adelman believes “we can get away with playing the game more fluid, as opposed to just force-feeding him the ball all the time.” The line of thinking goes that Jokic’s career-high in scoring was a consequence of the circumstances, rather than a rewarding culmination of his development.
“I just think naturally, getting hit, getting beat up, getting bumped, going from block to block … we’ve had to move him around over the years,” Adelman continued. “We start him on the left side and then he runs across to the right side, and three different people get a chance to hit him. I know he’s a big guy, but that does wear on him.”
The split game capitalizes on Denver’s abundance of guards and wings who are good screeners. One player initiates by entering the ball to Jokic at the elbow or high post, then setting or receiving a screen from another teammate. Those two off-ball players can react to the defense as they split apart, leading to slip cuts to the rim by the screener, hand-offs with the player receiving the screen, backdoor cuts, flare screens or step-outs for catch-and-shoot 3s … the list goes on.
“The better screen you set, typically once you get somebody on the rim, two (defenders) go to somebody and somebody (else) is open,” Christian Braun said last week. “And if they’re not, Nikola is looking at the opposite corner. So there’s a lot of different options out of it.”
Enough options that Jokic consistently has a safe and productive decision to make with the ball. His assist-to-turnover ratio was 3.82 as of Friday, up from 3.09 last season. (The year Denver won the championship, it was 2.72.)
As Adelman said, it’s not that he’s suddenly abandoning the low post as an option. In fact, Jokic’s 47 post-up possessions through nine games were still tied with Giannis Antetokounmpo for the most in the league, according to , and his efficiency has been mind-boggling. He’s shooting 26 for 34 (76.5%) on those post-ups, averaging 1.34 points per possession.
It’s the highest scoring rate for any player credited with 20 or more post-ups so far. Antetokounmpo averages 1.21 points per possession. Alperen “Baby Jokic” Sengun averages 1.00.
The 1.34 could drop to a more reasonable number as the sample size grows. Jokic has been able to pick on a few low-quality defenses already, including New Orleans and Sacramento. He’s shooting 76.8% inside the arc, almost 16% better than his career average.
But that’s kind of the point. Jokic’s efficiency has been cultivated by the luxury of needing to shoot less, to facilitate more. (His league-leading 19.2 potential assists per game are also a personal uptick.) Adelman would rather be selective than over-reliant on his superstar’s post-ups. Denver’s point-per-possession rate last season out of that play type was 1.09 — its lowest since 2020-21.
“I really enjoy playing low-post game,” Jokic said. “… I don’t want to say (it’s) my identity, but I think that’s something that I personally love, to play on the block. But I think in the flow of the game, you can find those empty spots and create for others or screen for others, or be aggressive on different places on the floor.”
