{"id":450157,"date":"2026-02-03T00:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T00:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/450157\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T00:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T00:53:08","slug":"nikola-jokic-has-to-stop-getting-annoyed-by-thunder-defense-to-beat-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/450157\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Joki\u0107 has to stop getting annoyed by Thunder defense to beat them"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this stage of Nikola Joki\u0107’s career, you have no chance against him if you play him straight up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The best player in the world<\/a> has spent his ten and a half NBA seasons accumulating data like a supercomputer. He approaches many games like learning opportunities, trying unconventional approaches that are a tad outside of his comfort zone but could be healthy for the Denver Nuggets<\/a>‘ high-powered offense against opponents they’ll see down the line. Even when the Nuggets take a loss on the chin because of Joki\u0107’s studious experiments, it’s understood that it’s about playing the long game. Joki\u0107 sees the court so well that even supposed exotic defensive coverages inevitably amount to the Serbian big man finding a way to carve them up like a skilled surgeon.<\/p>\n

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Knowing how special Joki\u0107 can be with just an inch of breathing room, the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> have decided to eschew the concept of affording any breathing room altogether.<\/p>\n

That’s precisely what makes the Thunder so confounding to him.<\/p>\n

PIONEERS: The NBA will start to copy the Thunder’s intense play style more and more<\/a><\/p>\n

On Sunday night, we saw another glimpse of Oklahoma City using a unique strategy to hamper Joki\u0107.<\/p>\n

You don’t give him single coverage. You don’t leave prime passing targets for him one pass away. You poke him. You prod him. You beat him up. You push the boundaries of how often referees can call fouls without disrupting the flow of a game, knowing Joki\u0107 will be flustered by the absence of logic and perceived fairness for a wing and guard-heavy team that refuses to let him take advantage of size mismatches. You focus your defensive gameplan around doing eveything possible to ensure he never has a moment of peace. This, in turn, throws Joki\u0107 off as he starts playing to make a point against the officials out of irritation, rather than attacking the defense with his trademark patience.<\/p>\n

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In other words, you attempt to slow Joki\u0107 down by annoying him.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar? It’s akin to the infamous “Jordan Rules”<\/a> that every NBA superstar the caliber of Joki\u0107 eventually faces. For a guy used to solving patterns on the fly, it’s the only real way to make the Nuggets’ talisman shortcircuit. The difference between a team like the Thunder and the rest of the Association is that Oklahoma City is talented enough and well-coached enough to actually follow through with this plan.<\/p>\n

While there were other factors to a wire-to-wire 121-111 victory for the reigning champs, this should be the main takeaway from the first of what could be 11 matchups (including playoffs) with terrific chess games between the Nuggets and Thunder over the next four months.<\/p>\n

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Christian Braun, Cam Johnson, and Aaron Gordon will all eventually return to the Nuggets’ starting lineup. This will boost their sometimes shoddy defense. First-time All-Star Jamal Murray<\/a> will make the shots in big games like he usually does. Breakout player Peyton Watson should continue blossoming. Joki\u0107 will knock off the rust and be back at full capacity after missing a month with a bone bruise<\/a>. The Nuggets will start getting more consistent rest with a stretch-run schedule that features a majority of home games after the All-Star Break and less random, one-off road trips.<\/p>\n

For a team led by a star player predicated on rhythm, all of this will feel like a useful reprieve as Denver tries to fine-tune itself for the postseason.<\/p>\n

INJURY LUCK: The Nuggets can be scary good … if they get healthy<\/a><\/p>\n

It still won’t change how the Thunder will treat Joki\u0107. They will still do everything they can to send the house at him so he doesn’t take control of this matchup. It was enough to land the latest punch in this battle of attrition between Western heavyweights. So, why would they stop? And the thing is, Joki\u0107’s greatness will still shine through more often than it should against this kind of aggressive defense. He, Murray, and the other Nuggets will assuredly land a few haymakers of their own on the Thunder in the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n

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Make no mistake, whether the Nuggets can ultimately get past these Thunder in a playoff series is predicated on Joki\u0107 keeping his eye on the prize.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I know insisting that Joki\u0107 simply “suck it up” is easier said than done. I’m positive he’s already well aware of how he has to keep his cool better against Denver’s arguably biggest obstacle to a second title in four seasons. I’m sure he also knows that when the Nuggets at their best, they’re plenty capable of knocking off the Thunder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s the rub here. If Joki\u0107 keeps letting the Thunder get under his skin, then the Nuggets have no chance of upending them. Plain and simple. They are, without question, the most daunting challenge he’s ever faced.<\/p>\n

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Shootaround<\/p>\n

This was Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter.\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to get it\u00a0delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Thunder know how to get under Nikola Joki\u0107’s skin better than anyone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this stage of Nikola Joki\u0107’s career, you have no chance against him if you play him straight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[5712,49,5714,48,2899,2597,2898,8228,5720,459,5725,9585,3555,5728,24381,82],"class_list":["post-450157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-aaron-gordon","tag-ca","tag-cam-johnson","tag-canada","tag-christian-braun","tag-cooper-flagg","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-jamal-murray","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-peyton-watson","tag-reggie-miller","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}