The Nuggets have had their fair share of issues over the past few years, but very few of them have related to Nikola Jokic. He has been the team's one, steady, consistent presence even in their darkest hours. Teams have tried a number of different things to slow him down, but time and again, Joker has found ways to impact and dominate games.
But on Saturday night, the Lakers tried something that hasn’t been seen and it gave Jokic as much trouble as we’ve seen in a long time. Jokic finished the game with just 12 points on 2/7 shooting in a game that the Nuggets lost by 23 points.
It was incredible to watch Jokic have such a muted impact on the game and for him to have such a quiet night in a game where Denver could never get it going offensively. So, just how did the Lakers manage to neutralize the most unstoppable player on the planet?
Lakers kept ball out of Jokic’s hands at all costs
From the opening minutes of the game, the Lakers were all over Jokic. They threw all kinds of wings at him all night long, picking him up full court and denying him simple catches in the backcourt.
Once the Nuggets were operating in the halfcourt, LA made sure to put a body in between Jokic and the ball, fronting the post with another body behind the Joker, making it almost impossible to feed him a post-entry pass.
Sometimes the Lakers shaded as many as three or four bodies towards Jokic, shrinking the floor and crowding the paint, prioritizing moving Jokic off his spots. When he was able to make a catch, he was swarmed by multiple defenders, lots of physicality, and active hands.
Nuggets’ spacing not doing Jokic any favors
The Nuggets were totally unprepared for this gameplan and many of the players around Jokic looked lost. Nobody knew how to react and they weren’t able to put themselves in advantageous positions to help Jokic.
The result was some brutally bad spacing and too many lineups with non-shooters. The Lakers were more than happy to leave guys like Russell Westbrook, Aaron Gordon, and Christian Braun open to swarm Jokic.
The Lakers were daring the Denver role players to beat them and they weren’t up to the task. It’s a major issue and one that won’t be easy to fix. Surely, employing this strategy is easier said than done and most teams don’t have the personnel to pull it off.
But the Nuggets need to make sure they have more counters available because good teams are sure to try this. Maybe it means Jokic takes the ball up the court and runs the offense as the point guard. Maybe it means loading up on shooting and playing more lineups with Murray, MPJ, and Julian Strawther.
Or maybe it means something else. But it has to mean something and Michael Malone is going to have to come up with that answer. There is no simple fix and no player coming to save the day. If teams can take away Jokic, the rest of the Nuggets roster is pretty average compared to the outrageous talent around the NBA.
The Nuggets need to solve this problem before it festers because next thing you know, teams will be consistently double and triple-teaming Jokic, keeping the ball out of his hands, and begging the likes of Westbrook and Gordon to shoot the Nuggets out of games.