Nikola Jokic spoke on the possibility of getting some more rest before the playoffs

Nikola Jokic has played 36.4 minutes per game for the Denver Nuggets this year, tied for the eighth-most by any player in the league. In his career, he has never averaged more than 34.6 minutes per game in a full season, and has had two different playoff runs in which he averaged less minutes than what he’s playing this year.

The Joker is an iron-man for Denver and has never played less than 69 games in a season (including the 2020-21 shortened season). He is the last player that will voluntarily miss a game for rest, but is that something that would be worth it for Jokic and the Nuggets heading down the stretch?

He doesn’t think cutting his minutes slightly would have an impact at all.

“I don’t think it’s a big difference between 32 and 36 minutes, or 33 and 38 minutes,” Jokic said Wednesday after the Nuggets were dominated by the Minnesota Timberwolves. “You already warm up. You’re already in the game. I think it’s a that different between 45 and 35, maybe, but I don’t think two or three minutes is a big difference.”

This is good for the Nuggets, as they need him on the floor for every possible second. The non-Jokic minutes have been troublesome for years, as the team consistently finds a way to blow leads when he heads to the bench to take a breather.

In the 2,186 minutes with Jokic on the floor this year, Denver has had a net rating of 10.63 with an offensive rating of 127.33, per PBP Stats. In the 1007 minutes without him on the floor, those numbers drop down to -7.67 and 105.89, respectively. The team’s 2-point field goal percentage increases by 7.61% while the 3-point percentage increases by 5.79%

Everyone knows the value of the three-time MVP when he’s on the floor. Coming off a postseason in which he played 40.2 minutes per game, it might benefit Nuggets’ head coach Michael Malone to cut down Jokic’s workload a bit before the playoffs.

Jokic was also asked about taking an entire day off instead of just cutting a few minutes a game.

“I don’t know. It’s hard. It’s very far away, so…”

In the back-to-back earlier this week in Oklahoma City, Malone had approached Jokic and asked him about the possibility of using that game as one for rest. Jokic was battling an elbow and an ankle issue, had played at least 38 minutes in the four games prior, and the Nuggets were coming off a tough loss.

He told Malone no and proceeded to put up 35 points, 18 rebounds and eight assists on the road against the top team in the Western Conference, handing the Thunder just their fifth home loss of the season.

The last time a player averaged at least 40 minutes a game in a playoff run en route to winning NBA Finals MVP was LeBron James in 2013. In recent years, it just hasn’t been sustainable for players who have as heavy a workload as Jokic has this year to play that many minutes and keep their production up for 20-ish games.

Whether it’s adjusting the rotation or finding a few games here and there the rest of the season, Malone will have to cut back on Jokic’s workload a bit if he wants to lead the Nuggets to a second NBA Championship.