Nikola Jokic is widely regarded as the world's best basketball player. But he has looked nothing of the sort against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Nuggets' opening round playoff series. And Jokic may have arguably had one of his worst playoff games in Game 3. Ever. Once again, Jokic was unable to make threes like he used to, and he couldn't make much else, leaving the Nuggets' offense stuck and stagnant, and Jokic's problem fully exposed.
Jokic shot just 7-26 from the floor and 2-10 from three in the demoralizing 113-96 loss to the Timberwolves. The 20% from mark from deep is worse than the 21.4% Jokic came into the game with over his last seven games, dating back to the regular season. His poor perimeter shooting is now a liability for the Nuggets' offense. Words I never thought I'd be saying.
Jokic had such a bad game against Gobert
Jokic had a terrible game in the match-up against Rudy Gobert. Gobert cooked Jokic defensively, and Jokic had no answer all night. Gobert was plus 18 to Jokic's minus 21, and he stopped Jokic cold multiple times. Gobert had 3 blocks, and he added 10 points and 12 rebounds to his stout defensive effort.
To make matters even worse, as if Jokic's shooting wasn't enough, Joker couldn't get a clean pass off all night. The pressure the Timberwolves applied all over led to a 4-turnover night on just 3 assists for the NBA's leading assist maker. Joker hasn't played that badly all season, and it truly looks like Gobert is inside of his head at this point.
Jokic finished the game with 27 points, but 11 came from the free throw line, the only place Jokic could hit a consistent shot all game. He added 15 rebounds, but the lack of ball distribution was tough to watch.
The Nuggets don't play well when Jokic shoots 10-plus threes
When Jokic is jacking up threes at the rate he did in Game 3, the Nuggets historically are losers. They're just 6-17 all-time when Jokic fires up 10-plus threes in a game. That's the game plan the Timberwolves were trying to force Jokic into, and they've been successful.
In the 2024 playoffs, the Timberwolves forced Jokic to be a scorer, not a distributor, over the final two games of the series, and the Timberwolves stormed back and shocked the Nuggets in seven games. You can see why. The Nuggets' offense goes stagnant when Jokic can't find the open player, and with Gobert one-on-one with Jokic, there's nobody open matched up man-to-man.
The Nuggets have got to adjust and figure out how to get Jokic back into his distributing mode, or this could be a quicker series than Nuggets fans could have ever imagined.
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