Nuggets overcome Kings’ ‘Jokic Rules’ for comeback win

DENVER—The Sacramento Kings sent the swarm at Nikola Jokic on Wednesday night, and it frustrated the Denver Nuggets, who ultimately overcame a 14-point second-half deficit to win 116-110.

It’s the new defense to defend Denver, who shoots the fewest three-point shots in the league and lacks spacing with Aaron Gordon out injured. Pack the paint, don’t let the three-time MVP touch it and let anyone but the big man shoot. Taking what the Kings gave them and not establishing their own formula, the NBA’s second-best offense was anything but their standard for most parts of the evening.

“It took a little while to get acclimated to them, starting Jonas (Valančiūnas) on Russ (Westbrook) and just assigning the player to just mug Nikola all over the court, but I think as the game went along, we did a better job, “Michael Malone said. “But here’s the thing, I really don’t care how they guard us. I really don’t. They shot 62% in the first quarter, by far, our worst quarter; quarters two, three and four. I thought our defense was great. So how they guard Nikola should have no impact on our defense, and it did tonight. We allowed our offensive struggles in quarter one to allow them to score 42 points and shoot 62%. That can’t be, especially with 20 games to go, there are going to be nights where the offense is not humming at the highest level.”

Still, Jokic was able to chug through a rough night, where he was battling pain that had him on the injury report, for 22 points on 18 shots, 15 rebounds and six assists with six turnovers while being a minus seven.

“I was just proud of Nikola for just kind of keeping this composure throughout that’s really hard in a game like that,” Malone said. “We can go to trying to post them up. They front. Do we have the proper spacing for a high, low, spin the ball back, work that triangle, and pick and rolls? They’re switching, and now they’re fronting him at the nail. This is something that we’re gonna have to continue to work on, ad nauseam, moving forward, because this is gonna be something we’re going to continue to see, and again, for me, the most important thing is, if you want to exploit that coverage, get stops. It’s really hard to implement that. When they’re taking, we’re taking them out of the net.”

The Nuggets were buoyed by strong contributions from Zeke Nnaji, who led the Nuggets bench with 10 points while being in the backup five role for a plus nine. Meanwhile, every Nuggets starter had double digits in the absence of Gordon, starred by Westbrook scoring a team-high 25 points. Jamal Murray was just off that total, thanks to strong free throw shooting of 14-of-15 for 24 points and eight helpers with no turnovers.

“I don’t ever think it’s the offense (that is an issue), it’s the defense,” Murray said. “It took more than a couple stops to implement ourselves in the game on the defensive end.”

Where the team was short Gordon and now Julian Strawther too, they got Peyton Watson back from a month of missed action—the young wing was trying to find his footing.

“Zeke Naji tonight was outstanding,” Malone said. “It’s great to have Peyton Watson back, but I felt there were a couple of really important runs when Nikola was off the floor that Zeke was on the floor, and that group defended and was able to kind of get us back in the game. So, Russ was outstanding. I thought Zeke off the bench was incredible. Jamal had 15 free throws—a great number.”

Denver outscored Sacramento 32-17 in the fourth quarter, getting a few huge plays from Westbrook spark the run. While the Kings were without their star big man Domantas Sabonis, they were lit by 35 points from DeMar DeRozan, hitting many tough mid-range shots.

This was the first of two at home for the Nuggets against middle-of-the-pack West teams before taking on the best crew twice over two days on Sunday and Monday in Oklahoma City.

“I was walking off the court tonight, somebody said, ‘We’ll take it.’ Damn right, we’ll take it,” Malone said. “I don’t think anybody in this room realizes how hard it is to win a game against a team that has won four in a row. So for all the people out there that say it wasn’t pretty. It’s a win.”