Nikola Jokic has played two formidable, historic seasons. Last time he won the MVP, in this one he has all the traces to repeat (with permission from Joel Embiid). In them, of course, he has only made it through one playoff series, against the Blazers. In 2021 the Suns ventilated their Nuggets (4-0) and now it has been the Warriors who have left them out (4-1) with no more setbacks than those last seconds of the fourth game that avoided the sweep, in Denver. That’s the way things are in the NBA. The West finalist in the bubble, in 2020, was later reinforced by Aaron Gordon and the official ring candidate card. But, since then, everything has been misfortunes. On April 12 of last year, Jamal Murray tore his cruciate ligament, and he hasn’t played all this season and has thus missed two playoffs in a row. And Michael Porter Jr has only played nine games this season. The last one on November 6. After signing an extension for five years and 173 million, he had to return to the operating room because of his back, that nightmare has his career in question despite that talent that falls out of his pockets.
Jokic has spent the whole year listening to rumors about the return of Murray and Porter Jr. Before the playoffs, during the playoffs… anything. We’ll see next year. He has averaged 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists in the regular phase. Alone against the world, with a team without a bra as soon as he rested a handful of seconds and forced to set in motion ever more complicated mechanisms to make the gears around them work. He did it, up to 48 victories with his neck out of the purgatory of the play in. And even an impossible first round against the Warriors: 31 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.8 assists on average for an exciting effort Jokicwho finished the fifth game (102-98) harassed by personal fouls, hampered by a muscle injury… and with no intention of giving up.
Since 3-0, when the last resistance fell in the first game of the series in Denver, the Nuggets had every reason in the world to seek a sweet death and let themselves go to vacation. They were exhausted, physically and mentally. But they fought, surely because they don’t know how to do anything else. From the control of Michael Malone to the example of Jokic and the inexhaustible energy of Aaron Gordon. They fought and sold their defeat so dearly that they arrived alive at the last minute of the fifth game after having they the only advantage in double digits of the night (54-64, in the third quarter). Austin Rivers had been injured along the way. And Jokic did what he could on the track damn in which Murray was struck down and in which it is believed that, in preseason, Porter Jr.’s new ordeal began. What could: Jokic finished, harassed by Draymond Green and all you want, with 30 points, 19 rebounds and 8 assists. In the last quarter he appeared with four fouls, he made the fifth in 30 seconds, went to the bench and came back when his team had nothing left and was torn to shreds of pride on the track. With a streak of 12 points in a row, he managed to reach the last 90 seconds in an illogical 94-92. There were no more lives left, no more gasoline, no more forces. What difference does it make. His team leaves in the first round, with their heads held high. What difference does it make. Jokic is a colossus, a mountain, one of the most wonderful mixtures of poetry and battle that the NBA has given. In all of its history.
The Warriors did not give a good image. It cost them more than the account, but they did the job. They have won 19 of their last 21 playoff seriesall since it began in 2015 that era theirs that they try to remodel, to raise again from the ruins of the last two seasons. Now they wait for the Grizzlies or the Timberwolves, on Sunday (if that series ends in six) starting in Memphis or on Tuesday, it remains to be seen where. little matter to a team that knows what it has inside and how far it is capable of going. That armor, that knowledge of who he is and where he is, appeared in the fourth quarter, when the Nuggets couldn’t take it anymore. The defense pressed to the limit, with Porter Jr and a Payton II who also scored five essential points including the final triple (for 97-92 with one minute to go).
This time the new one didn’t work little quintet. And Jordan Poole has linked two very bad games in a row after three wonderful ones. But there was Green, Payton II, Klay Thompson (15 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals, two baskets when he burned the ball) and, of course, Stephen Curry. The reason for everything else: 30 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 5/11 in triples. The base began the series under minimum after more than a month injured. He spent four games coming off the bench and has ended up back in the starting lineup with unbeatable feelings. The whole NBA knows what does that mean. He has, by the way, 49 career playoff games with at least five 3-pointers. Not only more than anyone, but also the same as those who follow him… between the two: 28 by Klay Thompson and 21 by Ray Allen.
The Warriors are one of the contenders for the title. It is so. They have flaws and dangerous valleys, but they’re nearly untouchable in their ceiling, one we’ve seen win playoff series of every color. Win rings. The Nuggets won’t play anymore this season. They leave with pride, without making excuses, without stopping competing until the last consequences, until logic took away the last crust of bread. As far as they could. You can’t say many better things about a team, less about one so bruised and with so many misfortunes on its back. But one, yes, led by that human mountain that is an impossible combination of storm and verse: Nikola Jokic. Happy summer, MVP.
