Here’s how the Nuggets are working to solve the ‘Jokic Rules’

The latest evolution in defending Nikola Jokic has frustrated the Denver Nuggets in recent games and has slowed down the team’s elite offense. Dubbed the “Jokic Rules” as an homage to the famed “Jordan Rules” employed by the Detroit Pistons under Chuck Daly in the 1980s, the defense hopes to make life tough on the three-time MVP who is averaging a triple-double.

The strategy to slow Michael Jordan was successfully used for three consecutive years to stop the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs after a 59-point game from His Airness in 1988. It’s this scheme that ignited the rivalry between the Bad Boy Pistons and Jordan’s Bulls. And it wasn’t until MJ bulked up under Phil Jackson, who instituted a triangle offense, that the Bulls got past the Pistons and went on to win championships. The Knicks later used a very similar defense against Jordan in the playoffs as that became the book on No. 23, but New York never succeeded in a series. The Jordan Rules were explained by Daly in a Sports Illustrated interview.

“If Michael was at the point, we forced him left and doubled him. If he was on the left wing, we went immediately to a double team from the top. If he was on the right wing, we went to a slow double team. He could hurt you equally from either wing—hell, he could hurt you from the hot-dog stand—but we just wanted to vary the look. And if he was on the box, we doubled with a big guy. The other rule was, any time he went by you, you had to nail him. If he was coming off a screen, nail him. We didn’t want to be dirty—I know some people thought we were—but we had to make contact and be very physical.”

Jokic’s career arc has been quite similar to Jordan’s, and it makes sense that other NBA teams are running extreme defenses in hopes of slowing two of the best offensive players in basketball history. So what are the Jokic Rules, how do they continue to change, and how can the Nuggets beat them?

The Jokic Rules

• Pack the paint
• Do not let Jokic touch it
• Start a forward on Jokic with the center roaming off the Nuggets’ worst shooter.
• Front Jokic anywhere on the floor, with backside help coming below the free-throw line
• Prefer that Jokic goes left
• Off-ball defenders are in the passing lanes and sometimes facing Jokic rather than their assignment
• When Jokic has it, be extremely physical and force the refs to call fouls
• Drag Jokic down on offensive rebounds

Below are some screenshots and stats showing how the Jokic Rules play out:

Look at how many defenders are surrounding Jokic.

This is the ultimate sign of respect for Jokic because he’s that good. He’s so unguardable that the only way to guard Jokic is by not letting him get the ball because once he does you’re cooked. pic.twitter.com/wKwNnoJcqr

— 🎗NBA•Fan🎗 (@Klutch_23) March 6, 2025

Welcome back 2021-22 Denver Nuggets spacing pic.twitter.com/8Tynkd32Iw

— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) January 4, 2025

I hate to be "foul guy" today, but come on, man, this game is just egregious. https://t.co/HmALhg6GfV pic.twitter.com/3bMFW0qvk4

— Joel Rush (@JoelRushNBA) March 6, 2025

idk if i’m more impressed by jokic or fultz on this possession lol pic.twitter.com/nDc9hXUH0r

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) March 6, 2025

[image or embed]

— Jake Shapiro (@shapalicious.bsky.social) March 6, 2025 at 3:29 PM

There are plays above where four different guys put a body on Jokic in a single possession—and somehow, he still gets the ball. For being a slow-moving seven-footer, Jokic is very good at finding ways to get open off the ball. Jokic is shooting ever-so-slightly worse (about 2%) inside the free-throw line from the left side, so that explains that preference. While games like the Kings one explain the swarm, where Jokic doesn’t have his normal passing lanes because he’s being blitzed into making a safe pass where one of his teammates will then have to make the decision. On Wednesday, Jokic had six assists and six turnovers. Jamal Murray in turn dished eight helpers without a turnover.

By starting a forward on Jokic it keeps a center down low to protect the paint early in the possession from cuts and drives. It also allows the forward to press Jokic up the floor, forcing the Nuggets to use another player next to Murray to break the press. Denver has found some success in using Aaron Gordon in this role to both drag a center onto the perimeter and because of his primary playmaking ball skills he picked up while being the main guy in Orlando.

The more mobile forward then can front Jokic and make it tougher for him to get the ball, while the backside center can meet him at the rim, leaving a lesser shooter. The Nuggets simply send Gordon to the basket in those situations since he’s such a good finsher, but because of his injury-limited season, Denver’s finishing isn’t as much of a threat, which takes away some of the spacing the Nuggets create from pressuring the rim.

Teams are also just hacking the big man, who is a good free throw shooter (82%) but does not get as many calls as some of his fellow MVP candidates. Jokic has shot the 18th-most free throws a night in the league among players with over 15 games played at six a contest. Meanwhile, he has the second-most shot attempts in the NBA from inside eight feet, where most fouls in the league occur. Jokic’s 612 attempts from down there only trails Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 682, who leads the league with 10.3 free throws a night. Part of this is because the Greek Freak only connects on 60% of his foul shots, so teams are really willing to send him to the stripe, but players like Trae Young and Damian Lillard, who shoot from distance way more than Jokic, also get to the line more than him. Simply put, drivers and shorter players are more likely to get fouls in the NBA, and just about everyone is smaller than Jokic, so you might as well hack him and see if the ref calls it. Nuggets coach Michael Malone stopped short of calling this out.

Solving the “Jokic Rules”

“I said, fellas, get used to this. We’re going to see this for the next 20 games,” Malone said after the Kings game about what he told the Nuggets during halftime. “Teams are not guarding anybody not named No. 15, Nikola Jokic.”

The Nuggets have not yet shown a great way to counter this style of defense. The team’s offense over the last six games since the Lakers first made waves with it is down to 19th by rating—stark from their second-best rating on the season as a whole.

Though Denver probably has a really good strategy to combat it, they’re just not yet using it. Most people know that the Nuggets have one of the best two-man games in basketball with Murray and Jokic. The two running pick-and-roll, rather than sending Jokic to the post, would force the defense to change.

This season, the Nuggets have run the seventh-fewest plays for the roll man on a pick and roll but are the best in the league at scoring off such plays. Right now, the Nuggets just aren’t running pick-and-rolls. Over the last two seasons, their play frequency for the ball handler coming off a pick has been the second-lowest and last in the league. Yet when it’s Murray and Jokic in it, the Nuggets are scoring a wild 1.2 points per possession and forcing more switches than ever. Even in pick-and-roll situations in the playoffs, the play will sometimes have the same results as what the Nuggets are getting now with post-ups, just by a different process—a tough shot for Jokic or an open three for a weaker shooter.

And that’s where all of this stems from. This defense was not one that a team could run against the Nuggets when they had Kentavious Caldwell-Pope or Bruce Brown on the floor. The two required too much focus and were good enough shooters to have defenders stay glued to them. Leave KCP or Cowboy, and it was a triple. In this era the thought was to let Jokic tire himself out by scoring and not let him playmaker.

The result now is that the Nuggets run less pick-and-rolls and shoot fewer threes than just about all their peers.

“Hit the open guys, there’s lots of different things (we can do) but I have no problem hitting my guys to shoot the ball,” Murray explained how the Nuggets can combat this defense. “If they’re going to leave guys for warmup shots eventually, they’re going to hit a couple.”

For a second season in a row, the Nuggets are shooting the fewest three-pointers again at 31 per contest. Everyone else in the league is shooting more deep balls, with the league average up 2.5 attempts per game this season. The Nuggets are one of the only great teams in the NBA not hucking up triples—they’re just not built to do that, but because of this fact, players are being left by defenders.

Though, when the Nuggets do take one of their rare threes, their third-best in the league by percentage.

“Our defense has gotta help our offense, and it’s not just about shooting threes,” Westbrook, who is the second-worst three-point shooter in NBA history among the 284 players with 2,000 attempts, said. “A lot is happening in the game, and I think people outside of the game of basketball don’t truly understand that it’s not just about walk up, he’s playing off, shoot the three. That’s not a real thing. Watch the game, you understand how the game goes, how people are guarding, why they’re doing it, who they’re doing it to. It’s bigger than just three-point percentage and three-point shots.”

Where Murray is fine letting the Nuggets take what the defense gives them in shots, Westbrook shares a different perspective. Against the Kings, the Nuggets took most of their threes in the first half but were much better in the second half when they pounded the paint despite it being packed.

“The best player on the court, in the world, is Nikola Jokic, so I’ll turn it over 20 times trying to pass him the ball. I don’t really care,” Westbrook said. “There’s a reason why they got five people in the paint. If I were the other team, I’d try to do that, too. It’s our job as a supporting cast to make sure we help and make the game easy for him. Get stops, run in transition, because we’re the best transition team in the league, so when we get stops, you can’t load up then.”

What Weestbrook says twice is true about the Nuggets’ defense. When Denver can get stops, their 19.9 fastbreak points a game leads the league. Even when they’re not running, if the Nuggets can get a stop and force mismatches on the way up the floor, Jokic will take advantage of it. The Nuggets need their defense to break the Jokic Rules on offense.

The Nuggets are at their best when they get to the paint, scoring an NBA-best 59 a game from there. It helps them get to the line, too, where the Nuggets have shot the eight-most free throws this season—an effort that has wained in the past few months but popped back up with 30 attempts against the Kings. It was the second time in three games the Nuggets got over 30 attempts after not doing it at all in the 15 games prior. Denver shot 30 free throws in a game 11 times in the season’s first 44 games.

Westbrook is right that there are ways to solve this defense without shooting; it’s just tough. This solution will ultimately make or break the Nuggets this spring since they do not have enough elite shooting. It’s going to put a ton of pressure on Murray as a shooter and playmaker.

There are already even moments in the game where Jokic’s IQ and chemistry with Murray shines through as a hint that the two will solve the Jokic Rules with a two-man game.

Murray’s final three against the Kings sees him deny a ball screen from Jokic, which forces a switch. The guard then strings out the defense and hits Jokic for a free throw line post up. That’s when the Jokic Rules kick in because Jake LaRavia is more worried that Zach LaVine didn’t front and gave the big man a catch. LaRavia doubles off of Murray, and Jokic hits him right back while he’s relocating to the three. Murray is wide open and hits it. Only an insane closeout from DeMar DeRozan slowed this play and forced the Nuggets into a Christian Braun corner three or cut instead—something better defensive teams will likely do. Yet it does enough to show that Jokic is going to solve this, and the Nuggets are working through different formulas to do that.

🇨🇦 Represent The Canadians 🇨🇦

Jamal Murray | vs. Sacramento

24 POINTS
4 REBOUNDS
8 ASSISTS
1 BLOCK pic.twitter.com/mQ8CmWXkMR

— NBA Canada (@NBACanada) March 6, 2025

Part of what is making the Nuggets offense look even worse than just the defense forcing them away from their bread and butter is Michael Porter Jr.’s struggles from deep the last six games—hitting at just 33%. Westbrook and Braun are each in the mid-30s on mostly wide-open shots. The Nuggets have had to rearrange their rotation quite a bit without Gordon most nights and Peyton Watson plus Julian Strawther’s injuries. Westbrook recently came back from an absence, and the team has turned to Zeke Nnaji, who barely played in the first half of the season. The Nuggets are trying to find an identity, all while being blitzed in a way that challenges the team’s chemistry.

“Some people only watch the TV games, they watch the Boston game and everybody has a comment, but throughout the year consistently, I didn’t hear any of this talk before all of a sudden it’s like, oh, you lose to the Lakers and everybody’s like losing their mind and like, personally, internally, we don’t panic. We play the right way,” Westbrook said.

The Nuggets have faced aspects of the Jokic Rules before.

In 2021, it was the Suns who used giant forwards to clog the Nuggets passing lanes without the release value of Murray on the floor. A year later, it was the Warriors packing the paint with the Nuggets down Murray and Porter. During the title run, teams started to experiment with putting centers off of Jokic, which culminated with the Wolves going double big against the Nuggets in the 2024 postseason. It’s all these principles of past struggles combined that is giving the Nuggets a bit of a fit right now.

“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,” Malone said. “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 the ball out of the net.”