Copyright The Denver Post
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The rim loves Nikola Jokic as much as his mother does. It inexplicably softens for him, accepting what he offers on his terms, welcoming the basketball almost invariably where other shooters might be rejected. In a hypnotic illusion, steel appears pillow-like. That’s the effect Jokic has when he’s at his best. And when he’s fully healthy. He’s both right now. Nuggets coach David Adelman said Tuesday night that Jokic’s recurring wrist injury disrupted his shooting touch at times over the last couple of years — in contrast to the early portion of this season. After a 35-point performance to lead the Nuggets in a 122-108 win over the Kings, Jokic improved his 2-point efficiency to 78.6%. He’s made a remarkable 88 of his 112 shot attempts inside the arc through 10 games. “It just seems like he’s really comfortable right now,” Adelman said of the wrist. “… There’s not a lot of words to describe what he’s doing right now. And he did it in 32 minutes, which is good for us. We didn’t have to play him into the ground. … Nikola obviously is playing at a ridiculous level.” After the first practice of Nuggets training camp in October, Jokic’s wrist was wrapped in a bag of ice, indicating discomfort. That might’ve seemed an ominous forecast for Denver’s season, but the pain hasn’t lingered. Jokic has described the injury as completely random in nature — it can be bothersome on some days and unproblematic on others. He shot 16 for 19 in Sacramento, relying almost entirely on 2-pointers until the last 90 seconds of the game, when the Kings pulled within seven and dared him to unleash a 3-pointer while handling the ball in a pick-and-roll. It wasn’t a terrible gamble — the perimeter is where Jokic hasn’t been as efficient this season — but he knocked this one down to dim the beam. “When Joker does make 3s, he’s just impossible to guard,” Aaron Gordon said. “He already is impossible to guard.” Jokic was averaging 32 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists on 73% shooting across Denver’s five-game win streak heading into Wednesday night’s game at the Clippers. “It’s actually funny,” Adelman said Tuesday. “Some of the things we show the players (on film), it’s crazy that we’re showing it to them and saying, ‘Hey, you have to be ready for this. This could happen.’ Because you never would do that with any other human being. The passes he makes, there’s an expectation to be ready to catch the ball and score in situations that guys had never been in, because they’d never played with a player like that. And I would imagine that’s what it was like playing with Magic (Johnson) or (Larry) Bird or whatever.” Jokic conjured a few remarkable passes in Sacramento, including another go-route outlet pass that found Cam Johnson over the top of every defender for a layup. But the true magic of this performance was in his shooting touch, from the swishes to the friendly rolls. “He did it from all over the floor,” Adelman said afterward. A free-throw line jumper out of Denver’s split action on the first possession of the game. A baby hook over Domantas Sabonis after running ahead in transition to get a deep seal in the paint. A tip-in. A layup off the glass, driving through traffic. A lefty finish as a roller for Johnson. A floater that kissed the front of the rim and the backboard before dropping in. A floater that touched nothing but net. Another floater. And another. “He’s got the best floater in the league,” Gordon said simply. “He just doesn’t miss them,” Johnson said, shaking his head. “He just doesn’t miss them. He just — perfect trajectory. Drops it right in every time. So it’s easy. As long as you get the ball to him, he’s gonna score it.” As long as that wrist is functioning. Adelman on Westbrook’s comments A week after the Kings visited Denver and Russell Westbrook called out the Nuggets for pushing him out, a rematch in Sacramento provided Adelman a chance to speak more on Westbrook. “I know the way that it ended up happening in the summer is what it is, and the business is the business,” the first-year Nuggets coach acknowledged. “But I only can look at it from a basketball standpoint. For me, it’s kind of an honor to be around guys like him. … It’s cool when you look back and say you’re around some of these people that are first-ballot, unbelievable Hall of Fame players.” Adelman compared the experience to when he overlapped with Kevin Garnett in Minnesota at the end of Garnett’s career. Westbrook, 37, signed with Sacramento after the Nuggets asked him to decline a $3.5 million player option in the offseason. He could’ve extended his time in Denver by picking up the option anyway, but “I don’t go anywhere I’m not wanted,” he said last week. Adelman also mentioned that he feels indebted to Westbrook for how he played in the first round of the 2025 playoffs, when Adelman was the interim coach trying to cement himself full-time. “For me to get this job, have a chance to get this job, guys like (Westbrook), the way they showed up in the playoffs is a big reason I even had an opportunity to have it,” Adelman said. “Russ, everything you see on the court and the emotions that he gives, none of it’s fake. It’s all legit.”
