The Denver Nuggets go into Thursday with a 3-2 lead over the San Antonio Spurs. The Nuggets have taken the last two games against the Spurs with their most recent being a 108-90 victory Tuesday in Denver. After a spluttering start to their postseason, the Nuggets are starting to look like the team that ended a six-year playoff drought in such dramatic fashion. Nikola Jokic has a lot to do with it. Jokic had 16 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists and fed Jamal Murray (23 points) repeatedly in Denver’s romp of the Spurs on Tuesday night.
“Their chemistry is almost romantic,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “They care about each other; they love each other. They play for each other. That’s when we’re at our best.”
“I mean, we’re growing,” Jokic said. “We’re both pretty passionate about basketball. So when we have some good plays or whatever, we just want to express our feelings.”
Nuggets with a Chance
A surprising second seed in the West, the Nuggets are up 3-2 and can advance to the second round for the first time in a decade with a win in Game 6 Thursday night in San Antonio, where they won last weekend for the first time since 2012. Two weeks ago, Jokic overcame suffocating double teams to become the fourth player in NBA history to record a triple-double in his playoff debut and the first since LeBron James in 2006. But he scored just 10 points to go with 14 assists and 14 rebounds that night. Since then, he’s averaged 22 points, 11 boards, and eight assists. Three times he’s come up a pair of assists shy of a triple-double.
“I mean, every great player is a challenge. And he can do a little bit of everything, and he does all of those things well,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’s the consummate team player who has great skills, but he’s also competitive, does a great job, has got a very high basketball IQ.”
He’s having quite the coming out party on the national stage, too.
“You hear everybody talk about these other players, rightfully so,” Denver coach Michael Malone said.
“The league is filled with great players. What Nikola Jokic is doing in his playoff debut has not happened very often in the history of this game. Once again tonight 16, 11 and eight. I damn near ran him into the ground. Those 3s at the end of the quarter were huge.
“He can impact the game in so many ways. I hope this playoff crowd, this national TV audience that people are tuning in and watching us and saying, ‘Man, this kid Nikola Jokic is real.’ We know it, and it’s about time everyone else realizes it.”
Murray’s 23 points led the Nuggets, who finally looked like the team that rolled through the regular season led by Jokic and backed up by the best bench in the league. The Nuggets led by as many as 30 points at 99-69, after which all of their starters took a seat.
- Get more details: Denver at San Antonio NBA Match-up Stats
