Nikola Jokić is MVP yet again. So why are his Nuggets struggling in the playoffs?

Nikola Jokić continues to work her way into the inner circle of basketball’s greatest ever. The Denver Nuggets’ otherworldly center won his third league MVP award on Wednesday night. He is only the ninth player to achieve this feat in the NBA, a feat that usually ends with players – LeBron, Jordan, Magic, Wilt – becoming mononyms. Had Jokić finished one spot higher in the 2023 voting, when he finished second to Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers, he would now be the only player to win the award four years in a row. Last year he led the Nuggets, a historically mediocre franchise, to their first NBA championship.

At this stage of his career, it is difficult to overestimate Jokić’s excellence. The 29-year-old Serbian is a marvel of consistency, dominating opponents almost every time he takes the floor. He is a scoring wizard, a playmaker and a returning threat. In fact, he’s making his free throws at a rate of over 80% on the year, while hitting about 35% of his three-pointers. While he’s doing all that, Jokić answers the question, “What if Shaquille O’Neal could shoot?” The 2015 second-round pick has become so mind-numbingly good that almost no one even bothers to debate whether he’s the best player in the world. It is now taken for granted.

But he may not be good enough to get the Nuggets back to the NBA Finals this year. Currently, Denver trails the high-flying Minnesota Timberwolves 2-0 in their best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series. The first two games, played on the Nuggets floor, were shocking. The reason for the upset wasn’t so much that the upstart Wolves were able to win a few games, but that Jokić and his teammates looked so powerless to stop them from doing so. In Tuesday’s Game 2, a final score of 106-80 somehow it didn’t do justice to how badly beat up the Nuggets were.

Through the first two games of the series, Minnesota exploited the only part of Jokić’s game that could plausibly be called a weakness: his defense. Jokić is 6-foot-4 and an astonishing athlete, but he spends a lot of energy on being a unique offensive and rebounding force, and it shows at times when he’s guarding his own basket. In Game 2, the Wolves got closer making eight of nine field goals on which Jokić was the main defender. It was a mix of pullup jumpers, driving layups, dunks and fadeaways, and the common thread was that Minnesota’s players weren’t afraid to go after the best player in the world.

In one symbolic sequence, Wolves star Anthony Edwards shot in transition toward Jokić, stopped for a pull-up three-pointer and missed. But Minnesota center Naz Reid simply crashed to the rim, slid around Jokić and rose for a one-handed putback dunk while the MVP looked on.

Jokić had 16 points, 16 rebounds and eight assists on Tuesday as he remains productive even on his worst nights. But he was also incoherent. His shots weren’t falling, his creative passes went over the line and looked silly, and the Nuggets were blown away in a shocking display of offensive futility. Jokić is famous for his direct comments in public, but as a reporter asked asked how the Nuggets would respond in Game 3 in Minneapolis, he replied, “I don’t know. We shall see.”

Jokić must take action something out. The Nuggets are almost on the brink, and the T-Wolves appear well equipped to play against Jokić, who has averaged 5.5 turnovers per game this series. Plus, Minnesota doesn’t have one great center, but two, with Karl-Anthony Towns, who has improved its long-derided defense, and four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert (worryingly for the Nuggets, Gobert missed Tuesday’s game). game to attend the birth of his child). If anyone can counter Jokić, it’s this team, with its oft-described ‘Twin Towers’ taking turns against him and with Edwards in charge. And that’s before we get to that point the suffocating defense of the rest of the team (watch Reid frustrate Jokić in this order).

All this said, Jokić’s presence is the main reason not to count out the defending champions. On the rare occasions when he underperforms, he tends to let his anger be on full display the next game, in this case on Friday. Jokić went 5-for-13 from the field in Game 2. The last time he had such lousy shooting was March 17 in Dallas, when he went 6-for-16. Of course, two nights later, Jokić went 14-for-22 and recorded 35 points and 16 rebounds. The opponents that night were…the same Timberwolves, playing on the same field where Games 3 and 4 of this series will be contested.

A comeback in this series, against a team with Edwards, one of the brightest young faces in the league, would be a memorable moment in Jokić’s career. But a loss won’t be decisive – it would have more to do with the brilliance of Edwards and Minnesota’s excellent defense than with Jokić’s shortcomings, along with the subpar performances of teammates like Jamal Murray, who has struggled to shoot . and control his temper.

Next season, Jokić will try to win four MVPs in five years, something only Bill Russell and LeBron James have done. Jokić will be the overwhelming favorite for the honor entering the season, and at this point the only question is whether he will do so with two championship rings on his fingers or with one.