· It is really pretty cool when the best player in the world shows up and acts exactly like the best player in the world should act. Nikola Jokic was a mistero last night. He had the 11th 30-20-10 game since Feb of 1976 and he has 5 of the 11. The 5 year run that Nikola Jokic is in the midst of is as good as any player in the history of the NBA.
· In the 4th quarter with Jokic on the bench the Jazz got the game down to 2 points and then Jokic checked in and hit a three and made a gorgeous outlet pass and the Nuggets lead by 7 within 2 possesions and the game never got closer.
· The Jazz had hoped to take away Jokic’s passing. The baskets he creates on back cuts and slices to players for easy layups in the half court are the ones they deemed the most damaging. It makes sense Denver is short offensive players and if you can prevent those types of baskets and force those players to make plays you are better off even if Jokic puts up big numbers. This has been the game plan from most teams this year and in turn Jokic has had to score more and he has been up to the task. Which is another feather in his cap of greatness. In the halfcourt, I think the Jazz did this fairly well. This might be where people underestimate Jokic because there is so much more to the game.
· I rewatched his 11 assists and it was a collection of everything. When the Jazz doubled he picked them apart. A gorgeous wrap around pass to the corner to Murray for 3, hitting Westbrook as the cutter on two occasions, finding a wide open Watson at the rim when Brice Sensabaugh left to double.
· The area where people don’t talk about Jokic enough is what he does for the Nuggets pace. You think of this big non athletic big as a slow plodding player but the truth is he plays with incredible pace. He passes ahead as well as anyone in the NBA and he initiates the fast break as well as any player in the NBA. Denver killed the Jazz in transition last night. According to cleaning the glass (this is an estimation based on box scores not actual) the Nuggets were in transition 30% of the time last night and scored 1.3 pts per transition.
· Jokic hands are so magnificent. We talked about this on POSTCAST last night. He taps the ball so quickly and is able to track the ball and get his own misses is amazing. He also gets it off his hands so quickly.
· The 1.3 pts per transition is actually pretty good transition defense by the Jazz considering how often they were in transition, the problem was the 30%. However, the problem is because of Jokic. Denver is much faster crossing half court and getting into first actions when Jokic is on the floor and that was really obvious last night. This is the part of Jokic’s game that I think is the most underrated and least talked about.
· Denver got 60 shots inside 5 feet and 30 shots in the restricted area. They did take 105 shots so it is below 30% of shots at the rim, but still a huge number.
· Jazz transition defense was a problem last night. However, this is because the Jazz committed 13 live ball turnovers and Jokic is incredible at leading the break. The Jazz turnovers last night were really poor. Most of them were just passes that got deflected or intercepted. Most of them were easy plays for the Nuggets. 9 of the 13 were bad passes that got taken by the Nuggets. None of these were passes that were leading to baskets. They all were attention to detail plays or focus. This was really poor and it this level a bit inexcusable.
· Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier looked like the G-League minutes helped.
· Johnny Juzang got his first start of the season and had 14 points and 4 rebounds.
· The Jazz did a good job of taking advantage of Denver being 29th in the NBA in transition defense and got out and ran and took advantage of that weaknesses in the first half. By the end of the night the Jazz were only in transition 14% of the time.
· I feel like the Jazz have made lots of strides recently. Last night, didn’t fall into that bucket for me. Nikola Jokic was completely dominating and turned the game, but the Jazz were not as sharp as they have been.,
