HOUSTON — Before ejections were getting passed around in Detroit like Thanksgiving side dishes, Nikola Jokic made sure tensions were festering with a gesture of sarcastic motivation.
“Hey, wake up,” Jokic told a referee after disagreeing with a lane violation call early in the Nuggets’ game Monday night. It was caught on broadcast video.
“Wake up. Wake up,” he repeated, clapping as though he was encouraging a teammate. He received his first technical foul, setting the stage for his disqualification late in the first half.
Jokic’s frustrations with officiating became a theme during Denver’s similarly frustrating five-game road trip this week, sparking a new wave of debate about how the two-time MVP is guarded and whether he receives enough grace from referees in the post.
“That’s normal,” Jokic told The Denver Post when asked about opponents not getting whistled for physical defense. “Seems like some guys are getting more beneficial calls. Some guys are not. And that’s normal. And some guys can say a little bit more. Some guys can’t. And that’s normal. I accept it.”
On one hand, complaining is often correlated with losing, and the Nuggets were entrenched in their first losing stretch of 2023-24 at the height of this multi-game conflict with officials. The day before his ejection in Detroit, Jokic reached five fouls early in the second half of a blowout loss. He was repeatedly miffed by calls and no-calls, culminating with him committing an ill-advised flagrant with the ball in his hands one possession after an offensive foul call that he disagreed with. Before the second half started Friday night in Houston, Jokic had a conversation with an official near the scorer’s table during which he used Nuggets coach Michael Malone as a demonstration, putting both his hands on Malone’s back while making his point. It’s not at all uncommon for stars to squabble with referees more adamantly than other players. Just ask Jokic’s friend, Luka Doncic.
On the other hand, it would be naive to ignore the recent trend of defenders making a concerted effort to treat Jokic’s post-ups with more physicality. From notoriously bulldoggish wing P.J. Tucker to Cleveland’s imposing double-big lineup anchored by Jarrett Allen, opponents are combatting arguably the best interior scorer in the NBA by doing exactly what Jokic replicated: putting two hands on him, roughing him up and daring the referees to call it. (In fairness to them, not much else works against Jokic.) Aaron Gordon said after the game in Detroit that he doesn’t blame Jokic for getting frustrated.
“I don’t think there’s a good plan (to counter that defensive approach),” Malone said Wednesday. “You can go into the game, but you can’t have a premeditated attack. I mean, we’ve talked to the league for nine years about Nikola and how he’s being guarded. I think things improved as he became MVP, things improved as we became a team that was winning at a high level. And I think he started to get the respect of the officials. But every night’s a different night.
“You never know how the game is going to be called. Are they going to call it tight? Are they gonna let them play? And as players and coaches, we have to adjust to the whistle. You can’t go into every game expecting it to be called a certain way. And that’s just the way it is. It’s always been like that.”
In the first four games of Denver’s road trip, Jokic attempted 15 total free throws, coming out to 6.23 attempts per 48 minutes played — well below his season average of 8.6 attempts per 48 minutes and much fewer than other high-usage MVP candidates (Joel Embiid 16.2, Giannis Antetokounmpo 14.8, Kevin Durant 11.1, Doncic 10.2). Jokic leads the league in touches per game (101.4) and post-ups per game (7.3) as of Sunday. He also ranks near the top of the league in 2-point field percentage (63.8%) and is third in points in the paint (17.1 per game) while top-10 in usage rate, but a fouls-drawn rate that doesn’t correspond.
Obviously, the elephant in the room is that Jokic’s play style has a lot to do with Denver’s low free-throw frequency. A ball movement-oriented offense is designed around his ability to see the floor, guide cutters, make the improbable pass or simply draw double-teams then locate who’s open. He doesn’t need to rely on drawing fouls to create offense. It’s why he’s one of the most thrilling players of his generation.
But he has also looked more like a score-first center early this season. His seconds per touch and dribbles per touch are marginally up from last year, so far. In the first 15 games, he averaged 18.7 field goal attempts after averaging 13.4 in his first 15 games of 2022-23. The more unstoppable he is as a sheer scorer, the more teams might feel their only choice is to guard him daringly. He’s in foul-drawing situations more often, but the calls aren’t coming.
Maybe this is how the pendulum swings back toward Jokic being a threat to lead the league in assists. He matched a career-high in New Orleans with 18, and he averaged 17.45 per 48 minutes in the first four games of this trip (vs. 12.49 per 48 this season as a whole). That should serve as a reminder how effective Jokic is offensively even when he’s frustrated at what he believes is a competitive disadvantage.
Also, a lot of the instigating events this week were off-ball situations: the lane violation in Detroit, an entanglement with Marvin Bagley III away from the play, an opponent jumping on Jokic’s back and knocking him down while he was trying to grab a defensive rebound in Orlando.
But there’s more to this than simply pointing fingers at the refs. If teams see Jokic react to no-calls the way he did this week, they’re more likely to double down on that chippy style against him. (After the absurd no-call during the rebound, a frustrated Jokic and Jalen Suggs grappled with each other while getting to their feet.) Teams have been failing to invent an effective defensive coverage against Jokic for years now. Getting him riled up and ejected seems to be the only proven method of containing him. Thick skin is necessary.
“I don’t try to talk to (the referees) usually,” Jokic told The Post, asked whether he thinks about when to pick his battles. “It just happened (in Detroit). It is what it is.”
In that area, Malone expressed full confidence in his center.
“You’ve gotta understand, me and Nikola, we’ve been together for nine years now,” he said. “And throughout those nine years, he’s proven to be very trustworthy. … I trust Nikola. He reads the game like no other, and if he’s getting flustered on the court, there’s a reason for that. … I can’t get thrown out. He can’t get thrown out. We have to find a way to deal with whatever adversity we may think we’re dealing with and stay in the game with our players to help them get through what they’re trying to get through. But Nikola’s a big boy, and I fully trust him to handle his business.”
Jokic and Malone have both remained as determined as possible to not let any officiating disputes stray into excuse territory when talking with media. That’s probably the best way to handle that business. But to onlookers, two things seem to be true at once: The defending NBA Finals MVP is getting increasingly hacked without accountability, and his reactions recently haven’t been Jokic at his most graceful.
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