Welcome to "One Play!" Throughout the 2021-22 NBA season, our TSN Staff will break down certain possessions from certain games and peel back the curtains to reveal its bigger meaning.
Today, Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic takes the spotlight.
Context: Jokic ran away with last season's MVP award. This season, he's arguably been even better.
Through 45 games, Jokic is posting the second-most points (25.9) and second-most assists (7.8) of his career to go along with 13.8 rebounds per game, the most he's ever averaged by a mile. Not only that, but he's shooting a career-best 57.2 percent from the field while canning 37.5 percent of his 3-point attempts and 81.4 percent of his free throw attempts.
Jokic's play has the Nuggets in the sixth spot in the Western Conference standings despite them being without Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., the team's second and third-best scorers. It's no wonder why Basketball Reference's model gives him the best odds to take home this season's MVP award as we enter the trade deadline and All-Star break.
Impressive as Jokic's raw numbers are, it's how he gets them that makes him special. Of all things, it was a turnover he committed in Denver's recent win over Milwaukee that showed how he operates at a different level than everyone else.
You know what that means — to the film room!
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The play:
Breakdown: In an attempt to stop the bleeding, the Bucks switch their defense up from man-to-man to a 2-3 zone. Jrue Holiday and Grayson Allen are at the top of Milwaukee's zone while Pat Connaughton, Khris Middleton and Bobby Portis man the bottom of it.
The possession starts to get interesting when Jokic receives a pass from Nuggets guard Monte Morris with 14 seconds remaining on the shot clock. Morris and Jokic are stationed at the top of the 3-point line, Aaron Gordon approaches Jokic once he has the ball and Austin Rivers repositions from the right corner to the right block to make room for a cutting Will Barton.
The Bucks respond accordingly: Allen slides over to Morris on the left wing, Holiday picks up Jokic and Portis motions to Connaughton to get around Rivers so that he doesn't get screened.
The problem? Middleton stays put on the opposite side of the court, basically leaving three Bucks — Holiday, Portis and Connaughton — to guard four Nuggets — Jokic, Gordon, Rivers and Barton. It then becomes a game of three-on-two — Jokic, Rivers and Barton vs. Portis and Connaughton — when Holiday gets caught up in Gordon's screen.
Jokic doesn't run many pick-and-rolls, but he's automatic from midrange and floater range. Knowing that, Portis steps up to prevent him from walking into an open shot. That puts Connaughton in a tricky position — does he commit to Rivers and risk Barton getting an open look at a three or stick to Barton and risk Rivers cutting in for a layup?
Jokic tries to thread a needle between Portis and Connaughton, but Connaughton reads it perfectly to come away with a steal.
Why it matters: I'm not going to pretend to be a mind reader, but it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to see that Jokic wasn't very happy with Rivers as the Nuggets made their way down the other end of the court. Why? Probably because of cutting sooner, he was too busy screening ... nobody.
I get it, you didn't come here for some analysis on a turnover, but stick with me for a second.
Less than a minute later, the Nuggets found themselves in an almost identical situation — Jokic in possession of the ball at the elbow against Milwaukee's 2-3 zone with Portis stepping up — only the result was quite different.
Instead of turning the ball over, this happened:
Whew!
One, it shows how smart Jokic is. The Bucks threw a 2-3 zone at the Nuggets, and both times he got into the weak point of the defense and had the right play in mind. Two, it shows how Jokic is not only a step ahead of the defense a lot of the time, but even some of his teammates. (Rivers has played 56 games with Jokic and still needs to be told to cut every so often. Gordon, on the other hand, doesn't.) Three, it shows how quickly Jokic makes decisions. Blink and you might've missed him diming up Gordon for an uncontested dunk.
Here's a stat that's almost impossible to believe: Jokic leads the NBA with 100.5 touches per game this season, but he averages only 2.5 seconds per touch. Want to guess where that ranks him relative to the rest of the league? 185th.
That's not a typo. Nobody touches the ball more than Jokic, and yet it sticks in his hands less than the likes of Desmond Bane, Evan Fournier and Malik Monk.
It's not unusual for a center to rank low in that category — Joel Embiid is in the same ballpark as Jokic, for what it's worth — but it speaks to how well-rounded Jokic is. Not only is he arguably the best passer in the league, but he's one of the most dominant and versatile scorers. He's developed an answer to pretty much everything a defense can throw at him, to the point where most possessions become a game of pick your poison.
Guard Jokic one-on-one in the post and he'll pick his defender apart with a series of up-and-unders and hook shots. Double him and he'll find the open man with pinpoint precision no matter where they are on the court. (Seriously, no matter where.) Drop too low in a pick-and-roll and he'll rainbow in 3s, but close out too hard and he'll drive to the basket with more finesse than you'd expect to see from a player his size.
And while there aren't many players in the league he can beat in a foot race, Jokic will do all of those things at a rate few can process.
Jokic truly is one-of-a-kind.