{"id":951311,"date":"2026-11-03T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/951311\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T17:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:32:09","slug":"nuggets-nikola-jokic-on-shaky-start-the-struggle-its-a-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/951311\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic on shaky start: ‘The struggle, it’s a privilege’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nuggets have a pile of problems contributing to their clunky 3-3 start. Their soon-to-be $360 million man<\/a> is at the top of the heap.<\/p>\n

The one constant in Denver, the one foundational reality on which every other variable depends, is that Nikola Jokic<\/a> is one of the best basketball players on earth. That his minutes, if all else fails, will be a resounding success.<\/p>\n

Jokic\u2019s performance against Portland on Monday night<\/a> was not a failure in a vacuum. He amassed 26 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and even four steals. He shot 10 for 22.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets lost his minutes by three points. They lost the game by eight. They fell to 3-3. And they\u2019re losing his 222 minutes this season by 2.3 points per 100 possessions.<\/p>\n

Six games in, their foundational reality has not been the reality yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got our (butts) kicked on the glass,\u201d coach David Adelman said after the 118-110 loss at Ball Arena. \u201c\u2026 This was a really frustrating night. I just think we gave the game away just in the hustle categories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The glass is usually Jokic\u2019s domain. It hasn\u2019t been so far this season. Trail Blazers center Donovan Clingan grabbed twice as many as him Monday, including a whopping nine offensive rebounds to out-number Jokic\u2019s eight defensive boards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the guy is really tall, you know? I feel like even when I kind of boxed out him, he would just grab the ball above me,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cAnd not just those. Even the tips. They were tipping to each other. It starts with me, of course, but I think it was a little bit of a collective effort. \u2026 The ball is gonna bounce everywhere. I think if you do the effort of boxing your guy out, that\u2019s gonna help us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adelman agreed, cutting Jokic some slack while diagnosing the 53-37 discrepancy in individual rebounds. He pointed out that Portland doesn\u2019t have a traditional four and was sending guards to crash the boards from every direction, creating tips and attainable 50-50 balls that Denver lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously Clingan (gets rebounds), but I thought a lot of those were \u2014 I\u2019d say half of them were off of other people\u2019s mistakes where you don\u2019t win your own battle,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd then Jok is taking on somebody else in the rotation, and (Clingan) ends up the benefactor of that. Especially in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the overall numbers indicate a precipitous drop in Jokic\u2019s usual rebounding dominance so far. The Nuggets are ranked 26th in defensive rebounding rate (64.9%) after Monday\u2019s loss, down from third place (71.7%) last season. They\u2019ve ranked in the top half of the league in that category for six consecutive years.<\/p>\n

Jokic is securing only 19.6% of all possible defensive rebounds when he\u2019s on the floor, down from 27% last season. He\u2019s been above 25% each of the last five seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gotta help Jok out,\u201d Jamal Murray<\/a> said. \u201cI think we\u2019ve just got accustomed to him grabbing so many boards against every single matchup, every single night. \u2026 We\u2019ve gotta go in and hit somebody. Grab the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray has been Denver\u2019s MVP at the offensive end of the floor \u2014 perhaps both a testament to his performance and an indictment of Jokic\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that the Serbian center has been a liability. He\u2019s averaging 22 points and nine assists at the six-game mark, still orchestrating, still producing. But it\u2019s merely All-NBA production, not best-in-the-NBA production.<\/p>\n

Mostly, it\u2019s a result of lackluster efficiency by Jokic\u2019s ridiculous standard. He\u2019s shooting 47.2% from the field \u2014 he has shot 56.6% or better in six consecutive years \u2014 and an especially troubling 22.6% from 3-point range on five attempts per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why, but when I\u2019m shooting them and practicing them, I\u2019m kind of making it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not making in the game. But I think the struggle, it\u2019s a privilege. Pushing to get better and pushing to think of what\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the shots that I think we\u2019re so accustomed to seeing that he never misses \u2014 whether it be a jump hook or a 15-footer, all of those kind of things \u2014 they\u2019re coming,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cThis is a six-game sample size of one of the most efficient basketball players that\u2019s ever lived. So I\u2019ll die on that sword. \u2026 It\u2019s like 10-for-22 for him is like he had a bad night, when everybody would want that for their superstar.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defining superpower of Denver\u2019s superstar, regardless of his own stats, has always been his profound impact on the game around him. Jokic has been a walking top-10 offense for almost a decade, puppeteering entire lineups to generate open shot after open shot. The ease with which he usually accomplishes that has been elusive early this season \u2014 a more intangible and existential concern that relates to Denver\u2019s identity as a team.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets have pedestrian 112.9 offensive rating with him on the court, only 5.2 points better than when he\u2019s off. Weirdly, every other Nuggets starter has a better on-off differential<\/a> at that end of the floor (led by Murray\u2019s 21.8).<\/p>\n

The effect, even on a night when Jokic\u2019s box score lent the appearance of dominance, was a lingering feeling that something was missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when we play good, it\u2019s really good,\u201d Jokic said, \u201cand when we play bad, it\u2019s really bad. And we cannot find consistency or happy mediums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nuggets have a pile of problems contributing to their clunky 3-3 start. Their soon-to-be $360 million man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,6183,726,3912,3895,3896,3897,1662,3913,3901,3914,3905,590,3906,3907,85],"class_list":["post-951311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ball-arena","tag-basketball","tag-colorado","tag-contract","tag-david-adelman","tag-denver","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-front-range","tag-jamal-murray","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-nuggets","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}