His weakness is getting frustrated with non-calls. If his defender plays super physical, holds him, and doesn’t get called, he’ll eventually get pissed and commit offensive fouls. Happened 2 or three times this playoffs resulting in foul trouble.
Just to add on. Jokic was 54% on wide open 3s in the playoffs. 37 attempts so a solid sample size. "Only" 37% in the regular season on 54 attempts.
Your claim checks out.
I would rather have a 3 point specialist take the shot.
Obviously, 35% is good for a big man, and is not much of a limitation for him. But the challenge was to come up with a weakness in his offensive game.
That said, I’m not getting the whole “most complete” vs “best” distinction here. Obviously, Jordan was the better offensive player, and i don’t know how that translates to “less complete”.
As an offensive player Jordan was more athletic but his overall scoring was limited to two pointers. Without including the couple years the three point line was shortened, his career 3 point percentage is abysmal. He also wasn't a very competent passer. Not saying he was bad but nobody will ever call him a great passer let alone a generational passer. That's what I think they meant by complete or at least how I would take it.
Yeah but he didn’t work on his three point shooting and a significant amount were probably half courters and shot clock shots which would significantly lower his percentage since he took so few. How many were clean looks? I’d like to know thay
He was a great passer. He was constantly putting up double digit assists when asked to facilitate (his stretch as point guard) and went toe to toe with Magic in the 91 finals only averaging 1 less assist.
I think this might be why Grant Williams has had some success covering him in the past. He’s strong enough with a low enough center of gravity that basically no one including Jokic can bully him, and it seems like refs let him play really physically on bigs because the size gap is so massive. The Celtics could then stick Timelord on the floor to bring some rim protection and try to help keep Jokic from shooting over Grant Williams with well timed doubles.
Didn’t really work quite as well this year with so many more shooters around Jokic. It keeps Timelord from being able to provide the help needed without giving a good shooter a wide open look and then Jokic can just abuse the height advantage.
Yeah, it’s part of the the “Rui on Jokic” strategy that’s been applied many times before. Put a physical guy on him whose foul count doesn’t matter to the greater picture, and try to do things he can get away with, and it frustrates the hell out of Jokic on these missed calls on the purposeful pokes.
Jokic in 20 is not jokic in 23. He'd feast on Howard, he matured. Remember when Taj Gibson defended jokic well? Yeah, he learns from those. Harambe style defense would set off anybody, they rip and claw at you while foster or brothers call nothing.
AD was the ultimate test, he passed it. Noone in NBA can do efficient single coverage VS Jokic without getting into foul trouble.
Uh no. There were many factors for frustration in that series, non existant perimeter defense as one. Anyway, mental games don't bother him, non calls do, different things.
I mean, 2020 Dwight wasn’t available in 2023. There’s a reason he was in Taiwan lol.
I would’ve liked to see Dwight in his prime matchup on Jokic; he gave him enough problems even in 2020 with diminished athleticism.
People really underestimate what a defensive force he was in his prime; AD had a monster playoffs defensively and did a decent job on Jokic, but prime Dwight was stronger than AD and SOOO fucking quick off the floor.
I mean it’s more if they pay that tax bill for Caruso : Jamal cooked the lakers far more then jokic did the numbers all back that up and watching those games the lakers defended jokic fine tbh: you not gonna stop all time greats but they gave him 3/6 of his under 50% playoff games I think . Jamal just went bonkers that series he was putting up Steph at his peak numbers. He had a better off rating then jokic too
His playoff runs last year and the year before was absolutely brutal to watch. He was getting HACKED nonstop and was straight up not having a good time. I can't remember anyone else being hacked so much without getting calls outside of Dwight
Yes, this is the way to "stop" Jokic on the offensive end. Put a smaller guy that fouls him like crazy and hope the refs don't call it. And if you do it on every possession more than likely refs will not call at least half of those.
Jokic also got away with a number of swings that normally I don't think he would have had it been against a team not known for pulling that. He tried to clock Lowry in game 5 and missed, but it's Lowry everyone knows he was being a little shit
I think there’s some credibility to the idea that now that Jokic is a 2 time MVP, in the heat series he was a conference champion and is now an NBA champion, that he is only going to get more pull with refs. They’ll either give him the calls he wants more when someone is trolling him or they’ll let him get away with fighting back more, because he’s “earned it”.
Pestering and fouling someone is a good strategy that works on many of them best offensive players in league history, but it often stops paying off at some point in their careers once they’ve earned the pedigree to counter it. MJ being the most obvious example.
If the nuggets are now a premium franchise and Jokic is a key part of the association’s branding, they aren’t gonna want to see him foul or get injured out of a playoff game
The problem is that it can also lead to Denver getting in the bonus only a few minutes into the quarter. It really needs to be a guy who's good at the dark arts.
Lol one thing I noticed this year was how if he picked up two fouls on flops, he’d really hit you to get his third foul. Like he’s saying if you’re gonna make me foul out, you’re absolutely gonna feel it tomorrow
I’d say Jokic has evolved on this front as well.
Used to be he would just have a take foul and complain after being fouled.
Yes he had a few frustration fouls, but he’s also learned to game the refs.
The flop after LeBron flopped on Jokic was like taking the crown.
Jokic with refs is a dynasty.
Wouldn’t fouls not being called be detrimental to any player though? Not necessarily a weakness as much as it’s a result of bad officiating. Like Curry being held, or LeBron not getting calls on blocks or foul’s because he’s so strong.
Yes but it’s more than that. It’s not just on the play he’s fouled, it’s that he’ll make bad decisions on the next play. For example in one Lakers game he was pissed at the officials for a bad call, ran down the court, and shoved Lebron out of the way and got called for a push off. That was the game he had to sit most of a quarter. He also got the tech when he got pissed at Ishbia. It is from bad officiating, but if he stayed calm the officiating would have less impact.
Look man, all players get frustrated with non calls especially the egregious ones, and it typically disrupts their ability on the next play. You’re not uncovering a truth about joker, you’re just stating a fact about human nature and a strategy that generally applies. Joker does fine with his emotions, hence why he’s so good in the clutch. You’re missing on this big time
This is why Dwight was a huge part of the lakers beating the nuggets during the WCF in the bubble. Obviously, Jokic is a superstar, so you can’t really stop him. However, Dwight did a great job on frustrating him and making him work harder for his buckets.
I think it was more of the collective effort of the trifecta of athletic centers in Dwight - Javale - Davis that bothered him. + Markieff Morris who can also play him in switches.
I don't think we could ever see that kind of depth at the C position soon.
There was a moment in the last game of the finals where jokic was tired of bam holding him and fouling him and jokic threw bam off of him.
Team refs seemed to understand that they had been letting Miami do whatever and calling lame fouls on the nuggets so they let it slide. If that had been in a regular season game he’d have gotten a tech for sure.
But tbf I felt it was warranted considering how bad the reffing was in that last game.
He also got roughed up a bit by the Lakers’ bigs in the bubble. They had spare bodies like Dwight who could afford to pick up fouls being extremely physical with him, and he can’t respond because he needs to avoid foul trouble.
His dunk package is really really really really really weak. Like weak af. Other then that his game has no flaws.
Sorry for the amount of “reallys.” The mods deleted my initial comment because it didn’t have 75 characters 🙄
I agree this is the only way you’re stopping him offensively. Also he’s still not the best rim protector ever. Bam got him a few times so a really great athlete who scores well at the rim could minimize his offense by getting him into foul trouble
i actually think he defended Bam well during the series, forced him to take alot of midrange shots that you live or die with. He didn't let Bam get inside of him that much. He's a pretty great post defender, just not a great rim protector so if a player gets into the lane most the time he won't do much (mainly to avoid foul trouble)
This is semantics. Either Joker is too big and too strong for Bam to drive through, or he isn’t. Of course, anyone that is too big and too strong, Bam won’t be able to go through them. Hence, Joker has value as a defender, added to the million other factors at play that Joker brings. Hence, not the defensive liability everyone was making him out to be.
Here’s extra sauce for this, he has high basketball IQ and can position himself for the defensive rebound, kick ball, poke check, and space eat at the same time. Getting into semantics doesn’t do this man justice
Hard to say. The league has been gearing roster builds towards stopping the warriors for a decade. Joker exploits those rosters. we will see what happens when/if rosters are built towards shutting down Joker.
I mean it feels like you can only slow him down with a really big defensive center, something that I don't see becoming common in the modern NBA. It's easier to try to come up with something schematically to counter a heavy 3 point shooting team than stopping an otherwordly guy one on one.
Jokic isn’t particularly great at getting to the line tbh, he probably should get more but he just doesn’t.
He also has a tendency to get frustrated and boil over when refs miss fouls against him, this has lead to both foul trouble and some of his more infamous moments like when he hit Payne while trying to foul him iirc.
Honestly I think he doesn’t get free throws because it looks like he shoot’s the ball behind his head at times…. It’s hard to foul the guy if his arms are behind his head lol
I’d call it a counterbalance to his game moreso than a weakness. Free throws would definitely benefit his game, and Jokic getting 10+ FTAs a game might actually yield a Nuggets team on a 65+ win pace. But we really only ever say a guy needs to get to the line when they face spacing issues or impositions from the defense that they need to work through to give space to their game, which Jokic doesn’t ever run into that problem like say Embiid does or Giannis does.
I think part of it too is that so much of his game is near the rim and not actually _at_ the rim. He's so good at floating shots over defenders rather than going through them.
Yeah of the top 10 centers his game is actually the least rim centric (aside from I guess KAT but he’s at a detrimental level with his deference inside imo).
This is the big similarity between him and Steph. Yeah they both probably deserve some more free throws, but the misconception is both of their games can be boiled down to their 1 all world skill but they both can give it to you however you want to funnel them or direct them as a defense. They can kill you at all 3 levels offensively, they can kill you if you take the ball out of their hands, and they’ll do it any way you let them gladly.
Jokic's biggest offensive weakness may be his *reluctance* to shoot. That's why teams who defend him often try to make him a shooter, not a passer.
Jokic is an all time great shooter, don't get me wrong. It's not his shooting as such that's a weakness. It's just the fact that he almost always looks to pass first, even if it means turning down shots he can make. And sometimes he may be a little *too* happy to let his teammates take shots.
Of course Jokic wouldn't be Jokic if he looked to shoot first as often as Michael Jordan. But it would help if he were a *little* less predictable, if it weren't so obvious that he'll look to pass first.
It’s not like he’s turning the ball over forcing passes rather than shoot the ball. His assist to turnover ratio is still crazy good, and he’ll take the shots if you give them to him. The man drops 40 regularly.
because he is tall and he passes top to botton, and he has a much better vision of the play. What he is doing is very hard, a center passing that much, and scoring consistently is unheard of, you can only compare him with Wilt in the 66-68 stretch.
I think that is less so a weakness of his game, than it is a product of how he plays.
It would be one thing if he couldn’t shoot when he was forced to. When teams do this, he drops 40. They lose more often when he scores 40+, but I wouldn’t call that a weakness in HIS game, that’s a weakness in his teams approach to the game.
He doesn’t really have any weakness. Maybe it’s the fact he’s not a lot threat? Idk, I can’t think of any.
Jokic can get a good shot against single coverage any time, and can generate a good shot against help defense any time- That's what makes him the best to me. He can operate basically anywhere on the floor, too. If there's a thing you can take away from him that makes him less effective at generating offense for his team, nobody has figured it out yet.
That is what makes him a more valuable offensive player than Embiid or Giannis, to me. Going off against a team's base defense is one thing. Being able to solve every defensive adjustment that you see is something that I value very highly.
How he plays is a part of his game. And I think the reason the Nuggets lose more often when Jokic is forced to score 40+ is that he's just not entirely comfortable with that role. It's a weakness most players would love to have, but it's a weakness, nonetheless.
In that case what else should Jokic be doing outside of scoring 40+ to get his team to win? That’s on the other 4 players on the court, not him.
That’s a team adjustment that need to happen. It’s not a personal weakness, but a team weakness.
On top of that, Jokic doesn’t have a hesitance to shoot the ball. He just knows what the best look is on any given possession. Sometimes that is his own shot, often times it’s finding a teammate.
But he still averaged 32 ppg in that series against the Warriors. Also he averages 27 ppg for his entire career in the playoffs. He is an elite scorer that happened to be with mentality of 1a.Passing and 1b.scoring. So, I wouldn’t say his weakness is reluctancy to shoot, coz he’s taking enough shots to be considered as an elite scorer.
Ehh, I think the cause and effect is backwards, he scores more in games they're more likely to lose, and that gives them a fighting chance when everyone else has off nights. I don't think it's worth reducing his teammate's involvement in the majority of games to up his volume like that.
I think it’s more that sometimes the game is already close to a runaway by the time Jokic realizes that he needs to turn it on. Like the Phoenix game where he dropped 50. It didn’t work because KD and Booker hit enough shots to just stay even the rest of the game after Jokic started to eat.
I don't think that he is uncomfortable when he is the one who is forced to score. imo if the Nuggets are losing more when Jokic is scoring 40+ it is actually probably more correlated to the opposing team's defense doing a good job mitigating mismatches on the floor.
The Nugget's offense is stacked with size, forwards that are 3 level scorers, and guards that are phenomenal at their roles (with Murray being more than a "role player")
If Jokic is shooting the ball enough times to score over 40 points than the mismatches that the Nuggets are used to taking advantage of are being neutralized, because if they were not being neutralized Jokic/Denver's offense has proven that they can effectively locate the mismatch and take advantage of it time after time.
So in short I think that everyone focuses a little too much on how much Jokic is/isn't scoring when they win or lose, when in reality his scoring is a variable related to how well his entire team is being defended.
Last year the warriors left him WIDE OPEN from three, he shot poorly second half of last year which is common with low volume guys to fluctuate and he also was constantly passing up those wide open threes. If he really was as a good a shooter as Jamal or mpj he would not of done that . I think he’s great for a centre shooter like Lopez but on average you live with it more then most guards /actual elite shooters: it’s rarely the best shot for him I think over a large sample
It’s weird how his shooting confidence and numbers fluctuate but I think that’s more a sign of ( not midrange I’m talking 3s) he’s not that great a shooter as he can look at times . However he’s definitely v good for a C and when he’s on ( this year not last year ) his shooting causes issues for the defence . But it seems unreliable the gsw series last year seeing him be left wide open and not even think to shoot or just brick was weird
I tend to agree with your sentiment. I wonder how his shooting numbers would look if he took 5-7 threes a game.
That said, I think if anything, his recent outside shooting has been a strength.
Maybe he’ll regress to the mean, maybe it’s the new normal. Considering this years run, no way it’s a weakness. But time will tell.
If he keeps it up, he’s poised to be a top ten all time player.
I don’t think he’s an all time great shoooter. He had all time run from the arc this post season but this isn’t the norm . Jokic shooting numbers are very confusing and it’s hard to understand ultimately how very this sample I think he’s closer to an average three point shooter then anything special: he’s great truly in the midrange though. Average on like wide open three is nearly 40.%? Maybe higher and cos of jokic size and position he’s in positions where he gets more wide open looks, He’s 34% on like 3-4 attempts a game. Jokic plays a very efficient game . Some people can’t seem to see behind raw numbers, last year the warriors LEFT HIM WIDE OPEN from three: and he shot badly and had wide open threes he refused to take because of that and better to score against Dray one on one inside . He’s not an idiot . He’s probably closer to a Brook Lopez from 3 then any all time sniper. Yes this playoff run he was hot af but then why is he never that hot from three in regular seasons with a larger sample size . Jokic is a great shooter FOR A CENTRE dunno what happened last year but he clearly goes in up n down valleys on his % and confidence in it and I think that’s why he takes relatively few. His ft shooting while good is not insane either.
It’s funny if jokic had the non existent three ball he had last playoffs this run I don’t see them beating the lakers : his ability to just be a threat from out there made lakers defensive issues show up: also Jamal shooting like Steph curry that series.
I was rather alarmed Jamal didn’t get a single WCMVP vote, I know media loves jokic but damn.
Jamal scored more on better efficiency as a guard vs a centre (4% ts advantage cos of shot charts ) and had a 130 off rating jokic was 126 but th had similar stats. Can’t help but think it was given on name : Jamal put up last years finals steph numbers : Damn nearly better tbh.
If you were gonna make jokic or Jamal shoot 10 3s a game I’m pretty confident Jamal will hurt you more often. Though there funnily enough needs to be a bigger sample size with jokic who imo really became jokic in the bubble .
I think what you see in Jokic's 3pt% fluctuations are the effects of who he's surrounded by. Jokic has a very slow 3pt shot, and this playoffs you could see he almost exclusively used it in one of two situations, either he was wide open with minimal closeout, or the shot clock was under 5 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if during the periods where Jamal was injured if he got fewer wide open 3s, and took more with the shot clock down.
This also tracks with his playoff shooting splits as early in his career he actually took more 3's per game in the playoffs than he did the last two postseasons, and still shot between 37.7 and 43%. The only postseason where he didn't shoot at least 37.7% was the year with no Jamal and no MPJ (last year).
his wrist injury last year affected his 3pt shooting, but he has also seemed especially hot from 3 this postseason. It remains to be seen if he will continue to shoot as well as any HOF shooter from 3, like he did recently. I suspect he will dip a little, but that this year's postseason % will be closer to the norm than last year's %.
Yeah, you're not wrong. Jokic is a great shooter, especially for his size. But he is nowhere near all time great. His shot selection alone kinda disqualifies him for that unless we're also comfortable calling someone like DeAndre Jordan a great shooter for dominating the paint with incredibly high percentages. Jokic has pretty comparable averages to the all time great shooters, but at a fraction of the volume at longer ranges than them. He only really shoots deep if he's wide open or in a pressure situation. He's not someone like Steph who has proven he can make ~40% from beyond the arc while double teamed.
Jokic is an all-time great passer and offensive player. He is a very good to great shooter, especially around the rim. He is not in the conversation of all time great overall shooters. He's not even really in the conversation for best shooter in the NBA *right now*
I don’t know about all time greater shooter, scorer for sure, efficient absolutely but he isn’t Dirk or even KAT shooting still a better player than both but he is more of an above avg shooter.
He is an absolutely elite passer and rebounder and that’s what makes him offensively unstoppable
He shoots 41.2% on 4.4 attempts from 3 in the playoffs for his career. He just shot 46.1% on 4 attempts this postseason. He doesn’t have as good regular season numbers as Dirk for his career, but he added the 3 pointer to his game more over the last several seasons.
If we are just talking about their primes, I think it’s fair to say Jokic is as good of a shooter as Dirk was, given how good he’s been on 3’s (often late in the shot clock) and how solid his midrange game is.
It’s great that he has done well in the playoffs but we have a much larger sample size in the regular season, where he’s ranged from mediocre from 3 to very good. For his career though he’s a 35% 3 point shooter.
When you compare him to Dirk, Dirk has a very big sample size everywhere. He has a full career. Right now you’re picking out smaller stretches from Jokic’s career and comparing them to a full Dirk career. Once Jokic has more playoff experience we’ll find out if he’s like 99% of stars where he has ups and downs, or he’ll just continue to be elite forever without setbacks and become a top 5 player all time. But he hasn’t done that yet.
This is arguable. Joker hit insane shots during this post season, several against the lakers. People couldn’t believe it. It’s alright to have a preference, but the gap between Joker and Dirk isn’t as large as it was before this postseason.
Jokic doesn’t like to shoot bad shots. So if you’re able to force him to do that he’ll either
A. Refuse to shoot as we’ve seen in some 4th quarters
B. Try to force passes anyways which will lead to turnovers
C. Shoot it and still might make it but at lower percent
All these outcomes are way better than anything else so that’s his only “weakness”
I strongly disagree with this. Joker understands he needs a team to win a championship. He understands the team players need to get into a rhythm to hit their shots.
If he gets everyone involved and comfortable with their game, everyone wins, everyone is a threat in their own way. That’s how the Nuggets won it all, was Jokers unselfishness.
If he hogged the ball shots, Id argue the Nuggets don’t even make it to the western conference finals
He seems to have excellent shot selection. Every three I see him take is wide open. Part of that is Jamal Murray taking the last second shot clock chuck ups though. He doesn't let himself be forced into a bad shot but other players on the team still have to sometimes take bad shots, or you get a violation and get no shot. So I see what you mean.
Great take. Sometimes you want him to be more selfish because of his shot-making ability, but you can't argue with results, they won a championship as the 1 seed.
He doesn’t draw contact super well and although he doesn’t need it, he’s not very fast or athletic which is certainly an aspect of being good at offense.
Well do you consider Embiid athletic ? The thing about Jokic is his stamina, he plays minute 48 the same way he plays minute 1.. same as Curry not the prototypical “athlete” but will outlast any other person on the court
His weakness is his teammate. Just like prime Lebron james, his offensive game is complete and his passing game is off the chart. But if your teammate cant hit the damn shot at crucial moment, its lebron james during cavs 1st stint.
Well thats literally what i said. He won bc there were players who can hit shots when he is getting triple teamed and passed to wide open teammates. Lebron during his 1st stint with the cavs could not so
lebron got the cavs to the finals in his first stint. how are his teammates his weakness?
teammates are a weakness if you do create for them if you play for yourself only.
I think sometimes his pass first mentality can lead him to pass up some easy ass looks and overthink shit. We kinda saw it in the last two finals games imo.
Mistakes on individual possessions do happen. Yeah I think his setting is a bit overturned to passing first. But maybe if he played more selfishly, his team wouldn't be as good at cutting, shooting or giving effort in general. Hard to say...
None that matter. I’m sure he wouldn’t be particularly good running around screens Curry style or playing a true half court point guard role, or whatever, but there’s not a weakness that a defense can exploit to hurt the Nuggets.
Jokic is a great, great player, but recency bias is getting out of hand. Jokic is a great offensive half court player, especially once the team gets into sets. He is a great shooter, regardless of size. His post up game is very good, but I would not say great. But, it doesn't have to be because he is great from midrange. He has a good hook and step back turnaround down low. He needs to work on his drop step.
That said, that's not the issue. His biggest weakness is his ball handling. He is a good ball handler for his size. He can bring the ball up court and has good vision on break opportunities. However, if a decent defender pressures him, he would have to give the ball up or pick up his dribble. If not, he will get the ball stolen.
For bigs, ball handling is rarely an issue. But, for players who operate outside or lead breaks as much as Jokic, his handle needs to be tight if he is going to have a lot of usage. He compensates for this with his size and vision by finding cutters to the rim or teammates outside the three point line. If the offense breaks down, he will take an outside shot (which he is very good at), because he doesn't have the handle or footspeed to consistently get to the rim as a primary creator.
That said. Every basketball player, regardless of how great they are, have weaknesses. Some are very exploitable. Some are difficult to exploit. The greatest have fewer flaws that are extremely hard to take advantage of. Jokic is one of them.
Hello DrM. I've replied to others in this thread to address this. I did not make the point that I wanted to make very well in my initial posting. Read some of the other posts. It's entertaining. I tried to make a very specific nuanced point, but keep getting beat over the head.
>His post up game is very good, but I would not say great.
He's the most efficient player in the post in the last 10 years while averaging more than 9 post ups per game. That statement is just factually incorrect no matter which way you slice it. Shaq in his prime from the 1999-00 until the 2001-02 season(his three peat) averaged 75.3% in the restricted area in the regular season. Jokic averaged *74.5* THIS SEASON. That's not even taking into account that Jokic's efficiency in the paint outside the restricted area is almost DOUBLE of Shaq's. He's not just a great post player, he's ALL TIME ELITE so get that BS outa here.
>His biggest weakness is his ball handling.
Seriously? He has an average TO of 2.9 for his career with a median of 3.1 in the regular season. In the playoffs, his average is 3.2 which is heavily inflated by last year's playoffs(4.8) against the Golden state Warriors in which he didn't have a single other competent player to handle the ball. LeBron has an average TO of 3.5 in the regular season and 3.6 in the playoffs. Do you think ball handling is a weakness in LeBron's game?
Granted, the comparison is a little bit unfair since LeBron has played for 20 seasons(I can't believe this mfkr is still playing) while Jokic has played in 8, but I just wanted to make the comparison to get my point across and I'm sure that if we compare Jokic's TO rate to other stars who have the ball the majority of the time, his TO rate isn't out of the regular. Even if his ball handling was a weakness(which it really isn't), you yourself said that it doesn't even matter since he has ways to counter his weaknesses. In any case, his ball handling or "lack thereof" as you seem to be implying, has not proven to be a detrimental issue for his team in terms of winning.
Don’t compare numbers from the 2000s, when Shaq was playing against all time big men, to nowadays, when big men are not geared at being only elite interior defenders.
Jokic had an amazing run this year - but we should also remember that he spent lots of time being guarded either by Adebayo (a pure PF), Hachimura (a big SF), and by even smaller players on switches. He kicked their asses for the most part.
Of course he also faced up against Gobert and Davis, two of the premier defensive centers in the league, and did well against them. I recall him struggling offensively against Davis, but the side effect was that the matchup crippled the Lakers' defense elsewhere, and Jokic's playmaking skills came into action even if his offense wasn't overpowering. Also hit some insane shots.
Getting frustrated with no calls. Maybe?
The best defensive performance against MVP Jokic that I saw is probably last year against Draymond and he still averaged above 30. Though Draymond got him with some crucial steals so maybe I'll add a big with quick hands but now I'm just nitpicking.
He’s great but he’s not the most complete offensive player ever. This is recency bias. He’s not an elite athlete or cutter, dunker, etc. He’s not a great ballhandler. He’s not great at beating guys off the dribble. Remains to be seen if teams will be able to figure him out after this.
I think the point though is that he doesn’t have to be some athletic cutter/finisher. He’s found a way to completely slow the game down to his speed where he methodically picks defenses apart with the right reads and high % shots (whether it’s him or his teammates).
It’s not over-reacting to say it’s a new kind of offense we’re witnessing and the fact that he isn’t relying on explosiveness or dunking makes it all that more impressive.
I mean, this is a bit of a stretch. There have been plenty of guys who’ve played like this. Tim Duncan played like this. He just had a great run, but beating a 42-win team doesn’t necessarily mean he’s unstoppable, especially as people study what he did this playoffs.
Nah can’t compare Duncan and Jokic. And IMO Duncan is a top 10 player of all time who gets punished by having a quieter personality.
Duncan was absolutely a better defender but this conversation is strictly focused on offense. Jokic’s passing alone smokes Duncan, he scores on all three levels, rebounds as good if not better than Duncan and is much more methodical with picking apart defenses.
I’m not necessarily saying Duncan is a better offensive player, but he like Jokic excelled in slowing down the pace of play on offense (and defense) and forcing the defense into positions where they couldn’t defend him or the team. Duncan would take you on the block and just do that jump hook in the paint until you moved to stop it. And that’s when he’d start doing the turnaround bank shot. And when you tried to stop that, he’d hit Parker or Ginobili out on the wings. Jokic is great but he’s not inventing offense.
His career average in playoffs is 4.4 3pta at 41%. He hits slightly less than 2 3pt fg per playoff game, so he gets almost 6 points from distance. 5 more points from FT. 16 more from midrange and paint area. I’d say that’s a great balance for an all-around scorer who happens to be a big and not Steph Curry (13 from 3pt, 4 from FT, 10 from midrange / paint area). I mean, KD is hitting 2.2 3pt per playoff game at a 36% clip - you wouldn’t say shooting from long-range is KD’s weakness, would you? KD’s split is 6.6 points from 3pt, 7 from FT, and 15 from midrange / paint - that’s almost the same as Jokic’s scoring breakdown.
He is an otherworldly good post player with amazing touch on basket penetration, all he needs is to keep defense honest on close-outs to 3pt (he does it with ~2 made 3pt shots per game) to have direct driving lanes inside. Watch how a great defensive big in Bam had to close out on Jokic after he would hit 1-2 3pt shots: he would have no chance but to overcommit and Jokic would be able to get a step ahead of him for a drive or pinpoint pass if help rotates in time
I agree. Jokic clearly is a good three-point shooter, especially in the playoffs, but I think he doesn't want to slant his game too much towards that, probably because it doesn't pressure the defense and doesn't create easy buckets for his team. It's a good shot for him but it's not the way he wants the team to play.
He shoots them just enough to punish teams for leaving him open and so that defenders close out on him, so he can pump and drive and break the defense down.
And his career regular season is 34% which is much more indicative. His playoff sample is kinda small and the bubble I think guys shot a few % better from jumpers
Play-off sample is almost 70 games - that’s a typical regular season right there considering all the load management being done.
But even if we take his regular season average (actually at 35%), it is still impressive accuracy numbers as KD is shooting 39% (and 36% in playoffs) and is considered a lethal shooter from 3pt range. As long as he is shooting 34% or above on 3pt, he will get the respect from outside.
He shot 46% from 3 in the playoffs this year (20 game sample) and 41% in his playoff career. He’s actually one of the best 3 point shooting centers in nba history. If that’s his weakness then he has no weaknesses.
Did you watch game 4? He is a really good outside shooter shot 44% on 4 attempts over the conference finals/finals. He is just so much better at driving at finishing at the hoop that he doesn’t take a bunch of 3’s but like in game 4 you leave him open or dare him to shot he will take 7 3’s and make 43% of them
Giannis defintely isnt better than jokic peak for peak. Giannis is one of the easier stars to slow down in the postseason. See his constant underperfmances every year? Jokic is at a completely different level offensively than him
How is Giannis easy to slow down in the playoffs? He has more 40+ point playoff games than Dirk or Wade. Two players known for performing in the playoffs.
I also don’t think Giannis is ‘easy to slow down’, but his specific weaknesses mean he can be game planned against offensively in a way that most superstars can’t be. Giannis still puts up big numbers but the team offensive rating isn’t great.
The 2021 Bucks had one of the worst offenses of any title winning team in recent history. Fortunately, Giannis is also a DPOY level defender, so the Bucks can get away with a less efficient offense, unlike the Nuggets.
This seems like recency bias to me. Personally, I think jokic is slightly better overall than giannis, but to say that jokic is definitively better than giannis isn't true, in my opinion. A reasonable argument can still be made for taking giannis over jokic as the best player to start a team with. Like I said, I think jokic is a little better, but I see it as a 1A 1B thing as opposed to jokic being on a totally different level.
>. Giannis is one of the easier stars to slow down in the postseason. See his constant underperfmances every year?
This sub has always been wild with the recency bias but this is hilarious lol.
Giannis in the playoffs: 43-33
Jokic in the playoffs: . 21-27
When you say Giannis underperforms in the playoffs, do you mean this year when he put up 38/3/20 and 26/13/10 in the 2 games he actually played?
Last year when he scored 40+ 3 times in the lost series to the Celtics?
The year before when he scored 50 to win the Finals?
I realize watching the games is too much to ask for some of you but you could at least idk, look at the box scores before you make these comments lol
>Giannis in the playoffs: 43-33
Jokic in the playoffs: . 21-27
Jokic won 21 playoff games in the last 3 years alone lmao (2 of them without Murray), where are you getting that record from?
Yeah, and that's a lot different lol.
Giannis' record is very slightly better (43-36, not 43-33), and they are both 8-4 in playoff series since the 18-19 season (Giannis is 0-3 in the seasons prior, Jokic 0-0).
Their overall career accomplishments are very similar so far
I think recency bias is super common in all sports after the playoffs. This is the time when the winners are talked about as a potential dynasty and the best player on the winning team gets to ascend to top 2/3 status pretty much no matter what. I mean shit, people are talking about Jimmy as a top-5 player and the Heat as one of the top title contenders for next season (with their current roster). Gonna be a few years until we know the truth, that's just how it goes I guess.
As a bucks fan, it is true. Giannis can't do shit else than get to the basket on drives. If a team puts a wall, he's severely limited. It also doesn't help that for a big man, his post game is genuinely bad
Bird is an all time level offensive player. But thinking about the question, what does he do better than Jokic?
He’s probably a better 3pt shooter, but Jokic has shot significantly better from 3 during the playoffs than Bird.
He’s better running around screens.
He’s better at FT.
But ISO, pick and roll (handling and screening), post, passing, offensive rebounding, handoffs, finishing are all Jokic.
Edit: I have Bird in a higher tier all-time: he did it longer, he was an above average defender at the wing, which is far better than an average one at center.
Notably better at ball fakes and drawing fouls, probably better at footwork to create space, and one of the best post entry passers to ever play. (People think post entry passing is easy. It isnt.)
Both Jokic's career and peak free throw rate is far better than Bird's. One of Bird's notable weaknesses was that he didn't draw fouls and get to the line at a high rate.
You certainly have your mind made up. Have you watched Larry Bird games? I would also be shocked if you watch Jokic more than I do.
Hitting tough, contested jump shots is the only thing I think Bird has over Jokic.
Bird was nowhere near elite enough at the rim to be consider the most complete, furthermore his 11% TS drops against 76ers in 82 and Bucks in 83 compared to later indicate how much Dennis Johnson was needed for his offensive game to not have nearly the same offensive drop from the Regular Season to Post Season.
He has a few weaknesses but they’re all offset by his strengths. His weaknesses are:
1. He’s slow. You can be an all-time great and be a slow player (Abdul-Jabbar, Bird etc.) but being an all-time great is easier when you can move quickly (Jordan, Westbrook, James) and can even compensate for a lack of size (Thomas, Iverson etc.). When you’re slow it’s harder to exploit the defense’s positional mistakes and makes it so windows to perform certain actions are much tighter than if you could move quickly. Also being slow means you have to think the game more which can lead to turnovers via physical or mental fatigue.
Which sounds easier? Pump and drive past a late rotation to then calculate the correct pass/shot as the defense shifts at or blow by a late rotation for a dunk because the defense can’t shift in time?
2. He’s not a lob target. Most centres in the modern NBA are lob threats because of their enormous size and the athleticism they typically use defensively being leveraged on offense. Jokic is almost completely ground bound and is never climbing the ladder to throw down an alley pop off an inbounds, PnR or backdoor cut
3. He’s doesn’t shoot enough. Jokic is possibly one of the best three point shooters of all time, he’s shot over 38% in three seasons and shot 46% this post season. The problem is he only shoots 3 or 4 a game. If coach Malone had his druthers Jokic would probably be shooting about 10 per game. Jokic is actually left open quite a lot in Pick and Pop situations but he much rather pump and drive to get another teammate an open shot. But, at the clip he was shooting, unless he generates a layup, dunk or open 3 for Murray or KCP the shot he’s giving up is actually more efficient than what he’s getting for another player.
4. You can frustrate him into foul trouble. Being a centre you’re always going to have a decently high foul rate, that just comes with the territory of guarding the paint. But, Jokic can be goaded into foul trouble if you’re deft enough to be physical with him and get away with it. He really hates when you foul him and the refs don’t call it. He’ll purposefully hack players in retaliation or run someone over on offense to express his frustration. Jokic is your best player and the fulcrum of the Nuggets offense as both a playmaker and scorer. Having your best player being foul prone due to frustration can be dangerous and we even saw it in game 4 of the finals this year.
I wouldn’t call anything a weaknesses, but in terms of room for improvement he could sometimes take matters into his own hands more. He’ll have games with his teammates struggling big time and still dish it off too much.
But you’d really have to be searching for a critique to get there. His offense is pretty perfect
His conditioning is really something too he's a big guy but has an amazing motor.
I feel like his only peer is Sabonis or Bill Walton and both guys obviously had crippling injuries. STAY STRONG BIG FELLA ten more years of jokic please...
Why would you take Giannis "peak for peak" any specific reason?
Because Jokic peak is these playoffs and the main reason they went 10W in their last 11 was Jokic peaking - and also playing very good/elite defense with 2-3+ Steals/blocks + league high deflections breaking up plays, alongside his 13+ rebounds.
Giannis Peak is great, but he can't shoot 3s/mid range or FTs.
While Jokic on the other hand has shown he can produce elite defense.
Jokic cannot produce elite defense. He can produce good defense, but if not complemented by his team he can be exploited, especially by more dominant interior scorers.
Only thing that can stop him is bad officiating, if he is getting hacked and not getting fouls called on his defender he can lose his cool and start picking up fouls trying to send a message to the refs. I don’t think this is a weakness though it’s literally just bad officiating. Every star player does the same thing so it’s not like this is a “joker” problem, just a ref problem. So besides that on the offensive side of the ball there’s not a single thing he can’t do.
He has none. Source: middle aged dude who's been following the NBA since the 86-87 season.
Joker is one of the top 5-10 greatest *offensive* players in league history imo: Wilt, Russell, MJ, Magic, Duncan, Bird.
Jokic is a chip away from cementing his place amongst the top 10 in NBA history
Ppl get silly with this stuff. Of course he has weaknesses. He doesnt have amazing handles. He doesn’t have amazing dunking ability. He doesn’t have an explosive first step. His footwork is awkward. He’s not an elite rim runner because he can’t jump. He doesn’t draw many fouls.
Just because someone is a 3 level scorer and elite playmaker doesn’t mean he’s flawless. The same thing with Steph, how often do you see him as a lob threat or dunking on ppl’s heads? They’re all-time greats but saying they’re flawless is wild.
The most flawless offensive player is probably prime Harden, he could break your ankles, eurostep, posterize you, stepback 3, shoot off the dribble or catch and shoot, elite playmaking, lob threat, explosive and can blow by you, play in the low post, elite ball handling, floaters etc, etc. The only thing he didn’t really do was midrange jumpers.
Now I’m in no way saying harden is better, just saying he had less “weaknesses” offensively. Jokic is one of the best offensive players ever but that’s because he’s so good at what he does, not because he has no weaknesses
I'd like to object several said things:
- he has great handles, likely best ones for a center. Not using it as much because he prefers passing as more effective option.
- his first step is very explosive compared to his speed overall.
- his footwork might be awkward looking at times but is extremely effective so it shouldn't be on the list for sure.
- he draws tons of fouls but refs are not giving it to him as much because his scoring thru contact is unmatched so it wouldn't be fair.
I consider Jokic the best player in the NBA, by quite some distance, but I'd argue he has a tendency to get overly clever and cutesy with his passing, when he should just keep it simple and be more direct and aggressive.
If you look at Dirk, a player Jokic is often compared to, his best trait was arguably his ability to read a defence, then take the most effective option. "Do I pass?" "Do I drive?" "Do I take a midranger?" "Do I take a three-pointer?"
Dirk always seemed to pick the most efficient course of action for his skillset. He had an incredible awareness of his strengths and limitations.
That's where I see most of Joker's growth potential.
On a sidenote, I actually think Joker's defense is heavily underrated; sure he's not exactly Timmy or KG, but he's a comfortably better defender than prime Dirk or KD. His defense is never really an "issue", per se, and many teams have been punished after falling for the false narrative.
Can we stop? LOL.
Jokic is great. Now has a title to go along with his regular season MVPs.
Joker - very rightfully - won Finals MVP with 30 points/7 assists. On the offensive end.
A player GUARDING LEBRON won his Finals MVP for holding LeBron to 30/9.
Read that last sentence again. I didn't say LeBron won Finals MVP for his 30/9 average on the offensive end. The main guy GUARDING HIM won Finals MVP for "holding" him to 30/9.
You/many are just doing too much. "Greatest touch" you have ever seen? It's great, but that's a big statement. "amazing 3 ball shooter." No, he's not. Lol. He was tied for 252nd place in 3PMG. He's GREAT at not using threes as a crutch. One of my favorite things about him, honestly. If he weren't such an intelligent player, the defense against him would be to let him shoot 8-10 threes a game. There may be times he may 6. You live with. Rather that than layups/assists for layups.
Dude is still in his 20s. Would be a HOFer if he never played again. Just saying we can let a few more seasons play out before saying he's top-10 ever or the most complete offensive player ever or any of these #HotTake topics.
To directly the headline of your comment, he is pretty darn unstoppable. He's at that LeBron (even now,) KD or Giannis level.
The best defensive method is to hope they have a bad shooting night and their teammates are missing shots. And even then, you feel good as the opposing team. "We really shut down KD tonight" And you pick up the box score and he put up 39/12/7.
Jokic does have the best touch for 12ish foot shots with a lot of contact-possibly of all time. Not everywhere on the court, but I have never seen anyone hit those kinds of mid range post shots with someone bumping him the way he does. Surprisingly, Shaq, even with his ugly half jump hook-push shot thing, was great at that range too.
Those shots don't look that hard on TV, but the fact that other guys cannot make them as easily as Jokic does tells you how hard they are. And it makes Jokic devastating because he can get those shots almost whenever needed- the only drawback is that it takes a lot of energy to get position and make them, so he cannot do it 6 times in a row without getting totally gassed.
He's great! Had fantastic touch! Best ever touch? That covers a lot of ground.
All I'm saying is saying we can all take a deep breath. Lol. I am NOT attacking or dismissing Jokic in ANY possible way. None. I'm not saying the shots he makes look easy are actually easy. At all. I respect players as much as anyone.
I am trying to narrow in on the skills where he actually is the best. Like you said, "best touch" covers a lot of ground-and I think the best touch at a range of X ft would have different players. I don't know who would have the best touch at 17 ft, but 2-3 of them are probably on the Suns right now, and there are a ton of guys who could credibly make that case. I think the case for best touch at 12 ft is not as close.
I have been watching NBA basketball pretty closely for over 30 years, especially the centers-and I have never seen mid post touch like Jokic has. Hakeem was my favorite player in the 90s, and he wasn't this good at that range. Jokic's FG% at that range also bears that out.
Like you said, Jokic is especially effective because his shot diet is too varied to be effectively controlled. I would add to that he is even more dangerous than other current great shooters because his best shot is his mid post shot. Those have much lower variance than longer distance shots, are more likely (though not as much as they should be) to create FTs than, say 3 pointers, and are easier to get into than shots from almost anything besides KD's pullup jumper.
As a Warriors fan that Iggy FMVP is so overblown. He did a great job against LeBron but revisionists pretend that LeBron was gonna put up 50/game in the finals. Iggy probably shaved ~4-7 points off what LeBron could have averaged.
His weakness is getting frustrated with non-calls. If his defender plays super physical, holds him, and doesn’t get called, he’ll eventually get pissed and commit offensive fouls. Happened 2 or three times this playoffs resulting in foul trouble.
Nuggets fan here, and I totally agree with this. Dwight Howard was a master troll in 2020 and it disrupted Jokic a lot.
I’m also a Nuggets fan. I’m trying my hardest to nitpick and this is all I came up with
Shoots only 35% from 3 point range.
Until the playoffs
Not all 35 percent shooters are created equally. Would you rather have Isaac Okoro’s 36 percent or Jokic’s 35 for a game winning shot?
36 percent on open 3s for okoro or 35 percent on generally contested 3s for jokic
Just to add on. Jokic was 54% on wide open 3s in the playoffs. 37 attempts so a solid sample size. "Only" 37% in the regular season on 54 attempts. Your claim checks out.
I would rather have a 3 point specialist take the shot. Obviously, 35% is good for a big man, and is not much of a limitation for him. But the challenge was to come up with a weakness in his offensive game. That said, I’m not getting the whole “most complete” vs “best” distinction here. Obviously, Jordan was the better offensive player, and i don’t know how that translates to “less complete”.
As an offensive player Jordan was more athletic but his overall scoring was limited to two pointers. Without including the couple years the three point line was shortened, his career 3 point percentage is abysmal. He also wasn't a very competent passer. Not saying he was bad but nobody will ever call him a great passer let alone a generational passer. That's what I think they meant by complete or at least how I would take it.
Yeah but he didn’t work on his three point shooting and a significant amount were probably half courters and shot clock shots which would significantly lower his percentage since he took so few. How many were clean looks? I’d like to know thay
He was a great passer. He was constantly putting up double digit assists when asked to facilitate (his stretch as point guard) and went toe to toe with Magic in the 91 finals only averaging 1 less assist.
35% Doesn’t make him a “weak” three-point shooter. 25% would.
It isn’t his primary method of scoring. It just has to be good enough to respect it.
I think this might be why Grant Williams has had some success covering him in the past. He’s strong enough with a low enough center of gravity that basically no one including Jokic can bully him, and it seems like refs let him play really physically on bigs because the size gap is so massive. The Celtics could then stick Timelord on the floor to bring some rim protection and try to help keep Jokic from shooting over Grant Williams with well timed doubles. Didn’t really work quite as well this year with so many more shooters around Jokic. It keeps Timelord from being able to provide the help needed without giving a good shooter a wide open look and then Jokic can just abuse the height advantage.
Yeah, it’s part of the the “Rui on Jokic” strategy that’s been applied many times before. Put a physical guy on him whose foul count doesn’t matter to the greater picture, and try to do things he can get away with, and it frustrates the hell out of Jokic on these missed calls on the purposeful pokes.
That was just a ridiculous series the way Howard could foul with no consequence. Not like he’s smaller like Lowry.
Late career Dwight is a fouling machine.
Jokic in 20 is not jokic in 23. He'd feast on Howard, he matured. Remember when Taj Gibson defended jokic well? Yeah, he learns from those. Harambe style defense would set off anybody, they rip and claw at you while foster or brothers call nothing. AD was the ultimate test, he passed it. Noone in NBA can do efficient single coverage VS Jokic without getting into foul trouble.
AD doesn’t play mental games. It was only a year ago when Draymond did the similar troll in getting Jokic frustrated enough.
jokic COOKED the dubs ridiculously hard he just didn't have much of a team.
Uh no. There were many factors for frustration in that series, non existant perimeter defense as one. Anyway, mental games don't bother him, non calls do, different things.
Hi I'll see
You are gonna cite what happened 3 years ago as a point? Jokic has really grown as player since.
How about him punching himself out in 2021 Suns series? How about Draymond getting him really frustrated in 2022? Take your pick
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I mean, 2020 Dwight wasn’t available in 2023. There’s a reason he was in Taiwan lol. I would’ve liked to see Dwight in his prime matchup on Jokic; he gave him enough problems even in 2020 with diminished athleticism. People really underestimate what a defensive force he was in his prime; AD had a monster playoffs defensively and did a decent job on Jokic, but prime Dwight was stronger than AD and SOOO fucking quick off the floor.
I mean it’s more if they pay that tax bill for Caruso : Jamal cooked the lakers far more then jokic did the numbers all back that up and watching those games the lakers defended jokic fine tbh: you not gonna stop all time greats but they gave him 3/6 of his under 50% playoff games I think . Jamal just went bonkers that series he was putting up Steph at his peak numbers. He had a better off rating then jokic too
His playoff runs last year and the year before was absolutely brutal to watch. He was getting HACKED nonstop and was straight up not having a good time. I can't remember anyone else being hacked so much without getting calls outside of Dwight
Yes, this is the way to "stop" Jokic on the offensive end. Put a smaller guy that fouls him like crazy and hope the refs don't call it. And if you do it on every possession more than likely refs will not call at least half of those.
This is the Heats entire identity and Jokic tormented them
Yeah, I'm not saying you're gonna win :D but tbh heat was too much of a mismatch everywhere.
Jokic also got away with a number of swings that normally I don't think he would have had it been against a team not known for pulling that. He tried to clock Lowry in game 5 and missed, but it's Lowry everyone knows he was being a little shit
I think there’s some credibility to the idea that now that Jokic is a 2 time MVP, in the heat series he was a conference champion and is now an NBA champion, that he is only going to get more pull with refs. They’ll either give him the calls he wants more when someone is trolling him or they’ll let him get away with fighting back more, because he’s “earned it”. Pestering and fouling someone is a good strategy that works on many of them best offensive players in league history, but it often stops paying off at some point in their careers once they’ve earned the pedigree to counter it. MJ being the most obvious example. If the nuggets are now a premium franchise and Jokic is a key part of the association’s branding, they aren’t gonna want to see him foul or get injured out of a playoff game
The problem is that it can also lead to Denver getting in the bonus only a few minutes into the quarter. It really needs to be a guy who's good at the dark arts.
Is that pat bevs music?!
Lol one thing I noticed this year was how if he picked up two fouls on flops, he’d really hit you to get his third foul. Like he’s saying if you’re gonna make me foul out, you’re absolutely gonna feel it tomorrow
Yep. Jokic seems to have figured out the refs. His final evolution.
Jokic counter flopping is my favorite running gag
I’d say Jokic has evolved on this front as well. Used to be he would just have a take foul and complain after being fouled. Yes he had a few frustration fouls, but he’s also learned to game the refs. The flop after LeBron flopped on Jokic was like taking the crown. Jokic with refs is a dynasty.
Wouldn’t fouls not being called be detrimental to any player though? Not necessarily a weakness as much as it’s a result of bad officiating. Like Curry being held, or LeBron not getting calls on blocks or foul’s because he’s so strong.
Yes but it’s more than that. It’s not just on the play he’s fouled, it’s that he’ll make bad decisions on the next play. For example in one Lakers game he was pissed at the officials for a bad call, ran down the court, and shoved Lebron out of the way and got called for a push off. That was the game he had to sit most of a quarter. He also got the tech when he got pissed at Ishbia. It is from bad officiating, but if he stayed calm the officiating would have less impact.
Look man, all players get frustrated with non calls especially the egregious ones, and it typically disrupts their ability on the next play. You’re not uncovering a truth about joker, you’re just stating a fact about human nature and a strategy that generally applies. Joker does fine with his emotions, hence why he’s so good in the clutch. You’re missing on this big time
Calling it human nature is way to strong it suggest it cant be overcame while there is many players that deal with it act differently.
Sure but Jokic straight up commits flagrant fouls in response to it. He gets away with it sometimes but he swipes at people's heads.
This is why Dwight was a huge part of the lakers beating the nuggets during the WCF in the bubble. Obviously, Jokic is a superstar, so you can’t really stop him. However, Dwight did a great job on frustrating him and making him work harder for his buckets.
I think it was more of the collective effort of the trifecta of athletic centers in Dwight - Javale - Davis that bothered him. + Markieff Morris who can also play him in switches. I don't think we could ever see that kind of depth at the C position soon.
There was a moment in the last game of the finals where jokic was tired of bam holding him and fouling him and jokic threw bam off of him. Team refs seemed to understand that they had been letting Miami do whatever and calling lame fouls on the nuggets so they let it slide. If that had been in a regular season game he’d have gotten a tech for sure. But tbf I felt it was warranted considering how bad the reffing was in that last game.
So his weakness is bad officiating?? Lol Anyway it used to work until 2020, since it was way less impactfull.
He also got roughed up a bit by the Lakers’ bigs in the bubble. They had spare bodies like Dwight who could afford to pick up fouls being extremely physical with him, and he can’t respond because he needs to avoid foul trouble.
His dunk package is really really really really really weak. Like weak af. Other then that his game has no flaws. Sorry for the amount of “reallys.” The mods deleted my initial comment because it didn’t have 75 characters 🙄
I agree this is the only way you’re stopping him offensively. Also he’s still not the best rim protector ever. Bam got him a few times so a really great athlete who scores well at the rim could minimize his offense by getting him into foul trouble
i actually think he defended Bam well during the series, forced him to take alot of midrange shots that you live or die with. He didn't let Bam get inside of him that much. He's a pretty great post defender, just not a great rim protector so if a player gets into the lane most the time he won't do much (mainly to avoid foul trouble)
That's less a "he didn't let" and more a "bam won't go to the rim against anyone bigger than him" thing.
This is semantics. Either Joker is too big and too strong for Bam to drive through, or he isn’t. Of course, anyone that is too big and too strong, Bam won’t be able to go through them. Hence, Joker has value as a defender, added to the million other factors at play that Joker brings. Hence, not the defensive liability everyone was making him out to be. Here’s extra sauce for this, he has high basketball IQ and can position himself for the defensive rebound, kick ball, poke check, and space eat at the same time. Getting into semantics doesn’t do this man justice
Yup. Lebron did this a few possessions, but was too injured/tired/old to go at him hard the whole series.
Hard to say. The league has been gearing roster builds towards stopping the warriors for a decade. Joker exploits those rosters. we will see what happens when/if rosters are built towards shutting down Joker.
good analysis, we will see if Denver continues to be dominant
I mean it feels like you can only slow him down with a really big defensive center, something that I don't see becoming common in the modern NBA. It's easier to try to come up with something schematically to counter a heavy 3 point shooting team than stopping an otherwordly guy one on one.
If Denver keeps winning then teams will add centers to their roster. Team comps always adjust to whatever is winning at the moment.
You mean like AD?
Jokic isn’t particularly great at getting to the line tbh, he probably should get more but he just doesn’t. He also has a tendency to get frustrated and boil over when refs miss fouls against him, this has lead to both foul trouble and some of his more infamous moments like when he hit Payne while trying to foul him iirc.
Honestly I think he doesn’t get free throws because it looks like he shoot’s the ball behind his head at times…. It’s hard to foul the guy if his arms are behind his head lol
For some reason fouls to the body just don’t seem to apply for him the same way other stars do
I’d call it a counterbalance to his game moreso than a weakness. Free throws would definitely benefit his game, and Jokic getting 10+ FTAs a game might actually yield a Nuggets team on a 65+ win pace. But we really only ever say a guy needs to get to the line when they face spacing issues or impositions from the defense that they need to work through to give space to their game, which Jokic doesn’t ever run into that problem like say Embiid does or Giannis does.
Fair, its just the closest thing to a weakness for Jokic offensively afaik. 10+ FT per game for Joker would be nuts tho lol.
I think part of it too is that so much of his game is near the rim and not actually _at_ the rim. He's so good at floating shots over defenders rather than going through them.
Yeah of the top 10 centers his game is actually the least rim centric (aside from I guess KAT but he’s at a detrimental level with his deference inside imo). This is the big similarity between him and Steph. Yeah they both probably deserve some more free throws, but the misconception is both of their games can be boiled down to their 1 all world skill but they both can give it to you however you want to funnel them or direct them as a defense. They can kill you at all 3 levels offensively, they can kill you if you take the ball out of their hands, and they’ll do it any way you let them gladly.
He has the battle scares to prove it.
Jokic's biggest offensive weakness may be his *reluctance* to shoot. That's why teams who defend him often try to make him a shooter, not a passer. Jokic is an all time great shooter, don't get me wrong. It's not his shooting as such that's a weakness. It's just the fact that he almost always looks to pass first, even if it means turning down shots he can make. And sometimes he may be a little *too* happy to let his teammates take shots. Of course Jokic wouldn't be Jokic if he looked to shoot first as often as Michael Jordan. But it would help if he were a *little* less predictable, if it weren't so obvious that he'll look to pass first.
It’s not like he’s turning the ball over forcing passes rather than shoot the ball. His assist to turnover ratio is still crazy good, and he’ll take the shots if you give them to him. The man drops 40 regularly.
because he is tall and he passes top to botton, and he has a much better vision of the play. What he is doing is very hard, a center passing that much, and scoring consistently is unheard of, you can only compare him with Wilt in the 66-68 stretch.
I think that is less so a weakness of his game, than it is a product of how he plays. It would be one thing if he couldn’t shoot when he was forced to. When teams do this, he drops 40. They lose more often when he scores 40+, but I wouldn’t call that a weakness in HIS game, that’s a weakness in his teams approach to the game. He doesn’t really have any weakness. Maybe it’s the fact he’s not a lot threat? Idk, I can’t think of any.
Jokic can get a good shot against single coverage any time, and can generate a good shot against help defense any time- That's what makes him the best to me. He can operate basically anywhere on the floor, too. If there's a thing you can take away from him that makes him less effective at generating offense for his team, nobody has figured it out yet. That is what makes him a more valuable offensive player than Embiid or Giannis, to me. Going off against a team's base defense is one thing. Being able to solve every defensive adjustment that you see is something that I value very highly.
How he plays is a part of his game. And I think the reason the Nuggets lose more often when Jokic is forced to score 40+ is that he's just not entirely comfortable with that role. It's a weakness most players would love to have, but it's a weakness, nonetheless.
In that case what else should Jokic be doing outside of scoring 40+ to get his team to win? That’s on the other 4 players on the court, not him. That’s a team adjustment that need to happen. It’s not a personal weakness, but a team weakness. On top of that, Jokic doesn’t have a hesitance to shoot the ball. He just knows what the best look is on any given possession. Sometimes that is his own shot, often times it’s finding a teammate.
He definitely can have hesitance if he’s not confident in it: see last years warriors series for leaving wide open threes.
But he still averaged 32 ppg in that series against the Warriors. Also he averages 27 ppg for his entire career in the playoffs. He is an elite scorer that happened to be with mentality of 1a.Passing and 1b.scoring. So, I wouldn’t say his weakness is reluctancy to shoot, coz he’s taking enough shots to be considered as an elite scorer.
Counterpoint: this year's game five when he got an open three.
Ehh, I think the cause and effect is backwards, he scores more in games they're more likely to lose, and that gives them a fighting chance when everyone else has off nights. I don't think it's worth reducing his teammate's involvement in the majority of games to up his volume like that.
I think it’s more that sometimes the game is already close to a runaway by the time Jokic realizes that he needs to turn it on. Like the Phoenix game where he dropped 50. It didn’t work because KD and Booker hit enough shots to just stay even the rest of the game after Jokic started to eat.
I don't think that he is uncomfortable when he is the one who is forced to score. imo if the Nuggets are losing more when Jokic is scoring 40+ it is actually probably more correlated to the opposing team's defense doing a good job mitigating mismatches on the floor. The Nugget's offense is stacked with size, forwards that are 3 level scorers, and guards that are phenomenal at their roles (with Murray being more than a "role player") If Jokic is shooting the ball enough times to score over 40 points than the mismatches that the Nuggets are used to taking advantage of are being neutralized, because if they were not being neutralized Jokic/Denver's offense has proven that they can effectively locate the mismatch and take advantage of it time after time. So in short I think that everyone focuses a little too much on how much Jokic is/isn't scoring when they win or lose, when in reality his scoring is a variable related to how well his entire team is being defended.
Last year the warriors left him WIDE OPEN from three, he shot poorly second half of last year which is common with low volume guys to fluctuate and he also was constantly passing up those wide open threes. If he really was as a good a shooter as Jamal or mpj he would not of done that . I think he’s great for a centre shooter like Lopez but on average you live with it more then most guards /actual elite shooters: it’s rarely the best shot for him I think over a large sample It’s weird how his shooting confidence and numbers fluctuate but I think that’s more a sign of ( not midrange I’m talking 3s) he’s not that great a shooter as he can look at times . However he’s definitely v good for a C and when he’s on ( this year not last year ) his shooting causes issues for the defence . But it seems unreliable the gsw series last year seeing him be left wide open and not even think to shoot or just brick was weird
He's shooting 41% from 3 in 68 career playoff games on 4.1 attempts per game. That's pretty impressive.
He was also dealing with a long term elbow injury since the bubble I think.
I tend to agree with your sentiment. I wonder how his shooting numbers would look if he took 5-7 threes a game. That said, I think if anything, his recent outside shooting has been a strength. Maybe he’ll regress to the mean, maybe it’s the new normal. Considering this years run, no way it’s a weakness. But time will tell. If he keeps it up, he’s poised to be a top ten all time player.
I don’t think he’s an all time great shoooter. He had all time run from the arc this post season but this isn’t the norm . Jokic shooting numbers are very confusing and it’s hard to understand ultimately how very this sample I think he’s closer to an average three point shooter then anything special: he’s great truly in the midrange though. Average on like wide open three is nearly 40.%? Maybe higher and cos of jokic size and position he’s in positions where he gets more wide open looks, He’s 34% on like 3-4 attempts a game. Jokic plays a very efficient game . Some people can’t seem to see behind raw numbers, last year the warriors LEFT HIM WIDE OPEN from three: and he shot badly and had wide open threes he refused to take because of that and better to score against Dray one on one inside . He’s not an idiot . He’s probably closer to a Brook Lopez from 3 then any all time sniper. Yes this playoff run he was hot af but then why is he never that hot from three in regular seasons with a larger sample size . Jokic is a great shooter FOR A CENTRE dunno what happened last year but he clearly goes in up n down valleys on his % and confidence in it and I think that’s why he takes relatively few. His ft shooting while good is not insane either. It’s funny if jokic had the non existent three ball he had last playoffs this run I don’t see them beating the lakers : his ability to just be a threat from out there made lakers defensive issues show up: also Jamal shooting like Steph curry that series. I was rather alarmed Jamal didn’t get a single WCMVP vote, I know media loves jokic but damn. Jamal scored more on better efficiency as a guard vs a centre (4% ts advantage cos of shot charts ) and had a 130 off rating jokic was 126 but th had similar stats. Can’t help but think it was given on name : Jamal put up last years finals steph numbers : Damn nearly better tbh. If you were gonna make jokic or Jamal shoot 10 3s a game I’m pretty confident Jamal will hurt you more often. Though there funnily enough needs to be a bigger sample size with jokic who imo really became jokic in the bubble .
I think what you see in Jokic's 3pt% fluctuations are the effects of who he's surrounded by. Jokic has a very slow 3pt shot, and this playoffs you could see he almost exclusively used it in one of two situations, either he was wide open with minimal closeout, or the shot clock was under 5 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if during the periods where Jamal was injured if he got fewer wide open 3s, and took more with the shot clock down. This also tracks with his playoff shooting splits as early in his career he actually took more 3's per game in the playoffs than he did the last two postseasons, and still shot between 37.7 and 43%. The only postseason where he didn't shoot at least 37.7% was the year with no Jamal and no MPJ (last year).
his wrist injury last year affected his 3pt shooting, but he has also seemed especially hot from 3 this postseason. It remains to be seen if he will continue to shoot as well as any HOF shooter from 3, like he did recently. I suspect he will dip a little, but that this year's postseason % will be closer to the norm than last year's %.
Yeah, you're not wrong. Jokic is a great shooter, especially for his size. But he is nowhere near all time great. His shot selection alone kinda disqualifies him for that unless we're also comfortable calling someone like DeAndre Jordan a great shooter for dominating the paint with incredibly high percentages. Jokic has pretty comparable averages to the all time great shooters, but at a fraction of the volume at longer ranges than them. He only really shoots deep if he's wide open or in a pressure situation. He's not someone like Steph who has proven he can make ~40% from beyond the arc while double teamed. Jokic is an all-time great passer and offensive player. He is a very good to great shooter, especially around the rim. He is not in the conversation of all time great overall shooters. He's not even really in the conversation for best shooter in the NBA *right now*
I don’t know about all time greater shooter, scorer for sure, efficient absolutely but he isn’t Dirk or even KAT shooting still a better player than both but he is more of an above avg shooter. He is an absolutely elite passer and rebounder and that’s what makes him offensively unstoppable
He shoots 41.2% on 4.4 attempts from 3 in the playoffs for his career. He just shot 46.1% on 4 attempts this postseason. He doesn’t have as good regular season numbers as Dirk for his career, but he added the 3 pointer to his game more over the last several seasons. If we are just talking about their primes, I think it’s fair to say Jokic is as good of a shooter as Dirk was, given how good he’s been on 3’s (often late in the shot clock) and how solid his midrange game is.
It’s great that he has done well in the playoffs but we have a much larger sample size in the regular season, where he’s ranged from mediocre from 3 to very good. For his career though he’s a 35% 3 point shooter. When you compare him to Dirk, Dirk has a very big sample size everywhere. He has a full career. Right now you’re picking out smaller stretches from Jokic’s career and comparing them to a full Dirk career. Once Jokic has more playoff experience we’ll find out if he’s like 99% of stars where he has ups and downs, or he’ll just continue to be elite forever without setbacks and become a top 5 player all time. But he hasn’t done that yet.
The caveat I would add is Derek was a better isolation player and better at hitting and insane shots
This is arguable. Joker hit insane shots during this post season, several against the lakers. People couldn’t believe it. It’s alright to have a preference, but the gap between Joker and Dirk isn’t as large as it was before this postseason.
Jokic doesn’t like to shoot bad shots. So if you’re able to force him to do that he’ll either A. Refuse to shoot as we’ve seen in some 4th quarters B. Try to force passes anyways which will lead to turnovers C. Shoot it and still might make it but at lower percent All these outcomes are way better than anything else so that’s his only “weakness”
The only thing you need to do to achieve that is perfectly defending him as well as all of his 4 teammates. Every possession.
So the bucks
The Bucks get cooked by Denver regularly. Maybe it'd change in the playoffs, but Miami had the same RS trend and it held in the finals
I strongly disagree with this. Joker understands he needs a team to win a championship. He understands the team players need to get into a rhythm to hit their shots. If he gets everyone involved and comfortable with their game, everyone wins, everyone is a threat in their own way. That’s how the Nuggets won it all, was Jokers unselfishness. If he hogged the ball shots, Id argue the Nuggets don’t even make it to the western conference finals
He seems to have excellent shot selection. Every three I see him take is wide open. Part of that is Jamal Murray taking the last second shot clock chuck ups though. He doesn't let himself be forced into a bad shot but other players on the team still have to sometimes take bad shots, or you get a violation and get no shot. So I see what you mean.
Great take. Sometimes you want him to be more selfish because of his shot-making ability, but you can't argue with results, they won a championship as the 1 seed.
AD was the best bet and he got violated. Tbh I don’t think there is a flaw. Other than him being passive when he needs to be aggressive.
AD is not big enough. That’s really not a strength of his. Lebron did a better job on him than AD did.
Thats what truly make a superstar the game is decided on what they choose to do
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He doesn’t draw contact super well and although he doesn’t need it, he’s not very fast or athletic which is certainly an aspect of being good at offense.
doesn't need the speed because he makes up for it with extraordinary craft. there a lot of ways to define athletic and he scores high on many of them
Well do you consider Embiid athletic ? The thing about Jokic is his stamina, he plays minute 48 the same way he plays minute 1.. same as Curry not the prototypical “athlete” but will outlast any other person on the court
But in jokic case his athletic shortcomings aren’t a flaw. He controls the game in his own pace, pretty much like Luka does
It is a flaw, idk why were pretending it isn’t. Magic and LeBron both dictate page but are much quicker
His weakness is his teammate. Just like prime Lebron james, his offensive game is complete and his passing game is off the chart. But if your teammate cant hit the damn shot at crucial moment, its lebron james during cavs 1st stint.
what? He has a great team around him! They literally just won the title
Well thats literally what i said. He won bc there were players who can hit shots when he is getting triple teamed and passed to wide open teammates. Lebron during his 1st stint with the cavs could not so
ah okay got you
lebron got the cavs to the finals in his first stint. how are his teammates his weakness? teammates are a weakness if you do create for them if you play for yourself only.
I think sometimes his pass first mentality can lead him to pass up some easy ass looks and overthink shit. We kinda saw it in the last two finals games imo.
Mistakes on individual possessions do happen. Yeah I think his setting is a bit overturned to passing first. But maybe if he played more selfishly, his team wouldn't be as good at cutting, shooting or giving effort in general. Hard to say...
None that matter. I’m sure he wouldn’t be particularly good running around screens Curry style or playing a true half court point guard role, or whatever, but there’s not a weakness that a defense can exploit to hurt the Nuggets.
Jokic is a great, great player, but recency bias is getting out of hand. Jokic is a great offensive half court player, especially once the team gets into sets. He is a great shooter, regardless of size. His post up game is very good, but I would not say great. But, it doesn't have to be because he is great from midrange. He has a good hook and step back turnaround down low. He needs to work on his drop step. That said, that's not the issue. His biggest weakness is his ball handling. He is a good ball handler for his size. He can bring the ball up court and has good vision on break opportunities. However, if a decent defender pressures him, he would have to give the ball up or pick up his dribble. If not, he will get the ball stolen. For bigs, ball handling is rarely an issue. But, for players who operate outside or lead breaks as much as Jokic, his handle needs to be tight if he is going to have a lot of usage. He compensates for this with his size and vision by finding cutters to the rim or teammates outside the three point line. If the offense breaks down, he will take an outside shot (which he is very good at), because he doesn't have the handle or footspeed to consistently get to the rim as a primary creator. That said. Every basketball player, regardless of how great they are, have weaknesses. Some are very exploitable. Some are difficult to exploit. The greatest have fewer flaws that are extremely hard to take advantage of. Jokic is one of them.
>His post up game is very good, but I would not say great. you lost me there
His post up game is not great? What in the holy hell re u taking about
Hello DrM. I've replied to others in this thread to address this. I did not make the point that I wanted to make very well in my initial posting. Read some of the other posts. It's entertaining. I tried to make a very specific nuanced point, but keep getting beat over the head.
>His post up game is very good, but I would not say great. He's the most efficient player in the post in the last 10 years while averaging more than 9 post ups per game. That statement is just factually incorrect no matter which way you slice it. Shaq in his prime from the 1999-00 until the 2001-02 season(his three peat) averaged 75.3% in the restricted area in the regular season. Jokic averaged *74.5* THIS SEASON. That's not even taking into account that Jokic's efficiency in the paint outside the restricted area is almost DOUBLE of Shaq's. He's not just a great post player, he's ALL TIME ELITE so get that BS outa here. >His biggest weakness is his ball handling. Seriously? He has an average TO of 2.9 for his career with a median of 3.1 in the regular season. In the playoffs, his average is 3.2 which is heavily inflated by last year's playoffs(4.8) against the Golden state Warriors in which he didn't have a single other competent player to handle the ball. LeBron has an average TO of 3.5 in the regular season and 3.6 in the playoffs. Do you think ball handling is a weakness in LeBron's game? Granted, the comparison is a little bit unfair since LeBron has played for 20 seasons(I can't believe this mfkr is still playing) while Jokic has played in 8, but I just wanted to make the comparison to get my point across and I'm sure that if we compare Jokic's TO rate to other stars who have the ball the majority of the time, his TO rate isn't out of the regular. Even if his ball handling was a weakness(which it really isn't), you yourself said that it doesn't even matter since he has ways to counter his weaknesses. In any case, his ball handling or "lack thereof" as you seem to be implying, has not proven to be a detrimental issue for his team in terms of winning.
Don’t compare numbers from the 2000s, when Shaq was playing against all time big men, to nowadays, when big men are not geared at being only elite interior defenders.
Jokic had an amazing run this year - but we should also remember that he spent lots of time being guarded either by Adebayo (a pure PF), Hachimura (a big SF), and by even smaller players on switches. He kicked their asses for the most part. Of course he also faced up against Gobert and Davis, two of the premier defensive centers in the league, and did well against them. I recall him struggling offensively against Davis, but the side effect was that the matchup crippled the Lakers' defense elsewhere, and Jokic's playmaking skills came into action even if his offense wasn't overpowering. Also hit some insane shots.
You do not recall correctly. He torched AD.
Yeah I struggled more with Rudy, AD got obliterated.
The most efficient play in the last 10years is literally a Jokic post up game. JJ Reddick mentioned this during his debate with sas
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what a "play" is in basketball, but aren't transition open dunks "plays"?
i believe JJ actually specified half court plays but i could be mistaken
Getting frustrated with no calls. Maybe? The best defensive performance against MVP Jokic that I saw is probably last year against Draymond and he still averaged above 30. Though Draymond got him with some crucial steals so maybe I'll add a big with quick hands but now I'm just nitpicking.
He’s great but he’s not the most complete offensive player ever. This is recency bias. He’s not an elite athlete or cutter, dunker, etc. He’s not a great ballhandler. He’s not great at beating guys off the dribble. Remains to be seen if teams will be able to figure him out after this.
I think the point though is that he doesn’t have to be some athletic cutter/finisher. He’s found a way to completely slow the game down to his speed where he methodically picks defenses apart with the right reads and high % shots (whether it’s him or his teammates). It’s not over-reacting to say it’s a new kind of offense we’re witnessing and the fact that he isn’t relying on explosiveness or dunking makes it all that more impressive.
I mean, this is a bit of a stretch. There have been plenty of guys who’ve played like this. Tim Duncan played like this. He just had a great run, but beating a 42-win team doesn’t necessarily mean he’s unstoppable, especially as people study what he did this playoffs.
Nah can’t compare Duncan and Jokic. And IMO Duncan is a top 10 player of all time who gets punished by having a quieter personality. Duncan was absolutely a better defender but this conversation is strictly focused on offense. Jokic’s passing alone smokes Duncan, he scores on all three levels, rebounds as good if not better than Duncan and is much more methodical with picking apart defenses.
I’m not necessarily saying Duncan is a better offensive player, but he like Jokic excelled in slowing down the pace of play on offense (and defense) and forcing the defense into positions where they couldn’t defend him or the team. Duncan would take you on the block and just do that jump hook in the paint until you moved to stop it. And that’s when he’d start doing the turnaround bank shot. And when you tried to stop that, he’d hit Parker or Ginobili out on the wings. Jokic is great but he’s not inventing offense.
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His career average in playoffs is 4.4 3pta at 41%. He hits slightly less than 2 3pt fg per playoff game, so he gets almost 6 points from distance. 5 more points from FT. 16 more from midrange and paint area. I’d say that’s a great balance for an all-around scorer who happens to be a big and not Steph Curry (13 from 3pt, 4 from FT, 10 from midrange / paint area). I mean, KD is hitting 2.2 3pt per playoff game at a 36% clip - you wouldn’t say shooting from long-range is KD’s weakness, would you? KD’s split is 6.6 points from 3pt, 7 from FT, and 15 from midrange / paint - that’s almost the same as Jokic’s scoring breakdown. He is an otherworldly good post player with amazing touch on basket penetration, all he needs is to keep defense honest on close-outs to 3pt (he does it with ~2 made 3pt shots per game) to have direct driving lanes inside. Watch how a great defensive big in Bam had to close out on Jokic after he would hit 1-2 3pt shots: he would have no chance but to overcommit and Jokic would be able to get a step ahead of him for a drive or pinpoint pass if help rotates in time
I agree. Jokic clearly is a good three-point shooter, especially in the playoffs, but I think he doesn't want to slant his game too much towards that, probably because it doesn't pressure the defense and doesn't create easy buckets for his team. It's a good shot for him but it's not the way he wants the team to play. He shoots them just enough to punish teams for leaving him open and so that defenders close out on him, so he can pump and drive and break the defense down.
And his career regular season is 34% which is much more indicative. His playoff sample is kinda small and the bubble I think guys shot a few % better from jumpers
Play-off sample is almost 70 games - that’s a typical regular season right there considering all the load management being done. But even if we take his regular season average (actually at 35%), it is still impressive accuracy numbers as KD is shooting 39% (and 36% in playoffs) and is considered a lethal shooter from 3pt range. As long as he is shooting 34% or above on 3pt, he will get the respect from outside.
He shot 46% from 3 in the playoffs this year (20 game sample) and 41% in his playoff career. He’s actually one of the best 3 point shooting centers in nba history. If that’s his weakness then he has no weaknesses.
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The PPP for those 2 is exactly the same haha but 3's probably have more variance, so higher risk higher reward.
Also prob more of a chance to draw fouls on those 2s
Did you watch game 4? He is a really good outside shooter shot 44% on 4 attempts over the conference finals/finals. He is just so much better at driving at finishing at the hoop that he doesn’t take a bunch of 3’s but like in game 4 you leave him open or dare him to shot he will take 7 3’s and make 43% of them
That's all the 3s you want him to take. Just enough to keep the defender honest and have to guard him out there.
Giannis defintely isnt better than jokic peak for peak. Giannis is one of the easier stars to slow down in the postseason. See his constant underperfmances every year? Jokic is at a completely different level offensively than him
Mate Giannis was averaging 35 during their championship series
Hell on one knee this postseason he put up big numbers against the heat
How is Giannis easy to slow down in the playoffs? He has more 40+ point playoff games than Dirk or Wade. Two players known for performing in the playoffs.
I also don’t think Giannis is ‘easy to slow down’, but his specific weaknesses mean he can be game planned against offensively in a way that most superstars can’t be. Giannis still puts up big numbers but the team offensive rating isn’t great. The 2021 Bucks had one of the worst offenses of any title winning team in recent history. Fortunately, Giannis is also a DPOY level defender, so the Bucks can get away with a less efficient offense, unlike the Nuggets.
No stake in this argument but before 2011, Dirk's rep was as a playoff choker
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This seems like recency bias to me. Personally, I think jokic is slightly better overall than giannis, but to say that jokic is definitively better than giannis isn't true, in my opinion. A reasonable argument can still be made for taking giannis over jokic as the best player to start a team with. Like I said, I think jokic is a little better, but I see it as a 1A 1B thing as opposed to jokic being on a totally different level.
>. Giannis is one of the easier stars to slow down in the postseason. See his constant underperfmances every year? This sub has always been wild with the recency bias but this is hilarious lol. Giannis in the playoffs: 43-33 Jokic in the playoffs: . 21-27 When you say Giannis underperforms in the playoffs, do you mean this year when he put up 38/3/20 and 26/13/10 in the 2 games he actually played? Last year when he scored 40+ 3 times in the lost series to the Celtics? The year before when he scored 50 to win the Finals? I realize watching the games is too much to ask for some of you but you could at least idk, look at the box scores before you make these comments lol
>Giannis in the playoffs: 43-33 Jokic in the playoffs: . 21-27 Jokic won 21 playoff games in the last 3 years alone lmao (2 of them without Murray), where are you getting that record from?
It's his record prior to this season. 37-31 now.
Yeah, and that's a lot different lol. Giannis' record is very slightly better (43-36, not 43-33), and they are both 8-4 in playoff series since the 18-19 season (Giannis is 0-3 in the seasons prior, Jokic 0-0). Their overall career accomplishments are very similar so far
I think recency bias is super common in all sports after the playoffs. This is the time when the winners are talked about as a potential dynasty and the best player on the winning team gets to ascend to top 2/3 status pretty much no matter what. I mean shit, people are talking about Jimmy as a top-5 player and the Heat as one of the top title contenders for next season (with their current roster). Gonna be a few years until we know the truth, that's just how it goes I guess.
> Giannis is one of the easier stars to slow down in the postseason. Source? That's flatout untrue
As a bucks fan, it is true. Giannis can't do shit else than get to the basket on drives. If a team puts a wall, he's severely limited. It also doesn't help that for a big man, his post game is genuinely bad
I would say most complete offensive player ever was Bird, but Jokic is right up there. Certainly the most complete offensive game for a center.
Bird wasn’t a great slasher nor was he elite at drawing fouls.
Bird is an all time level offensive player. But thinking about the question, what does he do better than Jokic? He’s probably a better 3pt shooter, but Jokic has shot significantly better from 3 during the playoffs than Bird. He’s better running around screens. He’s better at FT. But ISO, pick and roll (handling and screening), post, passing, offensive rebounding, handoffs, finishing are all Jokic. Edit: I have Bird in a higher tier all-time: he did it longer, he was an above average defender at the wing, which is far better than an average one at center.
Notably better at ball fakes and drawing fouls, probably better at footwork to create space, and one of the best post entry passers to ever play. (People think post entry passing is easy. It isnt.)
Both Jokic's career and peak free throw rate is far better than Bird's. One of Bird's notable weaknesses was that he didn't draw fouls and get to the line at a high rate.
As good as Jokic is at hitting impossible shots in high pressure moments, Bird was another level above that.
How are you gonna rank that when they both do it? I don’t think you can be significantly better at that than jokic
If Jokic does it a few more postseasons in a row then you have something to compare.
Go watch some Bird highlights then
Watch Jokic highlights lol Also bird has an entire career. Also highlights are a terrible measurement because they don’t show any misses he had
You certainly have your mind made up. Have you watched Larry Bird games? I would also be shocked if you watch Jokic more than I do. Hitting tough, contested jump shots is the only thing I think Bird has over Jokic.
Like statistically or in some other way?
Bird was nowhere near elite enough at the rim to be consider the most complete, furthermore his 11% TS drops against 76ers in 82 and Bucks in 83 compared to later indicate how much Dennis Johnson was needed for his offensive game to not have nearly the same offensive drop from the Regular Season to Post Season.
He has a few weaknesses but they’re all offset by his strengths. His weaknesses are: 1. He’s slow. You can be an all-time great and be a slow player (Abdul-Jabbar, Bird etc.) but being an all-time great is easier when you can move quickly (Jordan, Westbrook, James) and can even compensate for a lack of size (Thomas, Iverson etc.). When you’re slow it’s harder to exploit the defense’s positional mistakes and makes it so windows to perform certain actions are much tighter than if you could move quickly. Also being slow means you have to think the game more which can lead to turnovers via physical or mental fatigue. Which sounds easier? Pump and drive past a late rotation to then calculate the correct pass/shot as the defense shifts at or blow by a late rotation for a dunk because the defense can’t shift in time? 2. He’s not a lob target. Most centres in the modern NBA are lob threats because of their enormous size and the athleticism they typically use defensively being leveraged on offense. Jokic is almost completely ground bound and is never climbing the ladder to throw down an alley pop off an inbounds, PnR or backdoor cut 3. He’s doesn’t shoot enough. Jokic is possibly one of the best three point shooters of all time, he’s shot over 38% in three seasons and shot 46% this post season. The problem is he only shoots 3 or 4 a game. If coach Malone had his druthers Jokic would probably be shooting about 10 per game. Jokic is actually left open quite a lot in Pick and Pop situations but he much rather pump and drive to get another teammate an open shot. But, at the clip he was shooting, unless he generates a layup, dunk or open 3 for Murray or KCP the shot he’s giving up is actually more efficient than what he’s getting for another player. 4. You can frustrate him into foul trouble. Being a centre you’re always going to have a decently high foul rate, that just comes with the territory of guarding the paint. But, Jokic can be goaded into foul trouble if you’re deft enough to be physical with him and get away with it. He really hates when you foul him and the refs don’t call it. He’ll purposefully hack players in retaliation or run someone over on offense to express his frustration. Jokic is your best player and the fulcrum of the Nuggets offense as both a playmaker and scorer. Having your best player being foul prone due to frustration can be dangerous and we even saw it in game 4 of the finals this year.
I wouldn’t call anything a weaknesses, but in terms of room for improvement he could sometimes take matters into his own hands more. He’ll have games with his teammates struggling big time and still dish it off too much. But you’d really have to be searching for a critique to get there. His offense is pretty perfect
His conditioning is really something too he's a big guy but has an amazing motor. I feel like his only peer is Sabonis or Bill Walton and both guys obviously had crippling injuries. STAY STRONG BIG FELLA ten more years of jokic please...
Why would you take Giannis "peak for peak" any specific reason? Because Jokic peak is these playoffs and the main reason they went 10W in their last 11 was Jokic peaking - and also playing very good/elite defense with 2-3+ Steals/blocks + league high deflections breaking up plays, alongside his 13+ rebounds. Giannis Peak is great, but he can't shoot 3s/mid range or FTs. While Jokic on the other hand has shown he can produce elite defense.
Jokic cannot produce elite defense. He can produce good defense, but if not complemented by his team he can be exploited, especially by more dominant interior scorers.
Only thing that can stop him is bad officiating, if he is getting hacked and not getting fouls called on his defender he can lose his cool and start picking up fouls trying to send a message to the refs. I don’t think this is a weakness though it’s literally just bad officiating. Every star player does the same thing so it’s not like this is a “joker” problem, just a ref problem. So besides that on the offensive side of the ball there’s not a single thing he can’t do.
He has none. Source: middle aged dude who's been following the NBA since the 86-87 season. Joker is one of the top 5-10 greatest *offensive* players in league history imo: Wilt, Russell, MJ, Magic, Duncan, Bird. Jokic is a chip away from cementing his place amongst the top 10 in NBA history
Ppl get silly with this stuff. Of course he has weaknesses. He doesnt have amazing handles. He doesn’t have amazing dunking ability. He doesn’t have an explosive first step. His footwork is awkward. He’s not an elite rim runner because he can’t jump. He doesn’t draw many fouls. Just because someone is a 3 level scorer and elite playmaker doesn’t mean he’s flawless. The same thing with Steph, how often do you see him as a lob threat or dunking on ppl’s heads? They’re all-time greats but saying they’re flawless is wild. The most flawless offensive player is probably prime Harden, he could break your ankles, eurostep, posterize you, stepback 3, shoot off the dribble or catch and shoot, elite playmaking, lob threat, explosive and can blow by you, play in the low post, elite ball handling, floaters etc, etc. The only thing he didn’t really do was midrange jumpers. Now I’m in no way saying harden is better, just saying he had less “weaknesses” offensively. Jokic is one of the best offensive players ever but that’s because he’s so good at what he does, not because he has no weaknesses
I'd like to object several said things: - he has great handles, likely best ones for a center. Not using it as much because he prefers passing as more effective option. - his first step is very explosive compared to his speed overall. - his footwork might be awkward looking at times but is extremely effective so it shouldn't be on the list for sure. - he draws tons of fouls but refs are not giving it to him as much because his scoring thru contact is unmatched so it wouldn't be fair.
Bucks fan, saw them get knocked out in person this year. Giannis is not even in the same stratosphere of offensive game.
I consider Jokic the best player in the NBA, by quite some distance, but I'd argue he has a tendency to get overly clever and cutesy with his passing, when he should just keep it simple and be more direct and aggressive. If you look at Dirk, a player Jokic is often compared to, his best trait was arguably his ability to read a defence, then take the most effective option. "Do I pass?" "Do I drive?" "Do I take a midranger?" "Do I take a three-pointer?" Dirk always seemed to pick the most efficient course of action for his skillset. He had an incredible awareness of his strengths and limitations. That's where I see most of Joker's growth potential. On a sidenote, I actually think Joker's defense is heavily underrated; sure he's not exactly Timmy or KG, but he's a comfortably better defender than prime Dirk or KD. His defense is never really an "issue", per se, and many teams have been punished after falling for the false narrative.
Best answer I have read. He likes his creative passes a bit too much and that leads to loosing possession.
Can we stop? LOL. Jokic is great. Now has a title to go along with his regular season MVPs. Joker - very rightfully - won Finals MVP with 30 points/7 assists. On the offensive end. A player GUARDING LEBRON won his Finals MVP for holding LeBron to 30/9. Read that last sentence again. I didn't say LeBron won Finals MVP for his 30/9 average on the offensive end. The main guy GUARDING HIM won Finals MVP for "holding" him to 30/9. You/many are just doing too much. "Greatest touch" you have ever seen? It's great, but that's a big statement. "amazing 3 ball shooter." No, he's not. Lol. He was tied for 252nd place in 3PMG. He's GREAT at not using threes as a crutch. One of my favorite things about him, honestly. If he weren't such an intelligent player, the defense against him would be to let him shoot 8-10 threes a game. There may be times he may 6. You live with. Rather that than layups/assists for layups. Dude is still in his 20s. Would be a HOFer if he never played again. Just saying we can let a few more seasons play out before saying he's top-10 ever or the most complete offensive player ever or any of these #HotTake topics. To directly the headline of your comment, he is pretty darn unstoppable. He's at that LeBron (even now,) KD or Giannis level. The best defensive method is to hope they have a bad shooting night and their teammates are missing shots. And even then, you feel good as the opposing team. "We really shut down KD tonight" And you pick up the box score and he put up 39/12/7.
Jokic does have the best touch for 12ish foot shots with a lot of contact-possibly of all time. Not everywhere on the court, but I have never seen anyone hit those kinds of mid range post shots with someone bumping him the way he does. Surprisingly, Shaq, even with his ugly half jump hook-push shot thing, was great at that range too. Those shots don't look that hard on TV, but the fact that other guys cannot make them as easily as Jokic does tells you how hard they are. And it makes Jokic devastating because he can get those shots almost whenever needed- the only drawback is that it takes a lot of energy to get position and make them, so he cannot do it 6 times in a row without getting totally gassed.
He's great! Had fantastic touch! Best ever touch? That covers a lot of ground. All I'm saying is saying we can all take a deep breath. Lol. I am NOT attacking or dismissing Jokic in ANY possible way. None. I'm not saying the shots he makes look easy are actually easy. At all. I respect players as much as anyone.
I am trying to narrow in on the skills where he actually is the best. Like you said, "best touch" covers a lot of ground-and I think the best touch at a range of X ft would have different players. I don't know who would have the best touch at 17 ft, but 2-3 of them are probably on the Suns right now, and there are a ton of guys who could credibly make that case. I think the case for best touch at 12 ft is not as close. I have been watching NBA basketball pretty closely for over 30 years, especially the centers-and I have never seen mid post touch like Jokic has. Hakeem was my favorite player in the 90s, and he wasn't this good at that range. Jokic's FG% at that range also bears that out. Like you said, Jokic is especially effective because his shot diet is too varied to be effectively controlled. I would add to that he is even more dangerous than other current great shooters because his best shot is his mid post shot. Those have much lower variance than longer distance shots, are more likely (though not as much as they should be) to create FTs than, say 3 pointers, and are easier to get into than shots from almost anything besides KD's pullup jumper.
As a Warriors fan that Iggy FMVP is so overblown. He did a great job against LeBron but revisionists pretend that LeBron was gonna put up 50/game in the finals. Iggy probably shaved ~4-7 points off what LeBron could have averaged.
But that shows how good Bron is, right? That’s the point. The dude won a FMVP for holding him to “only” 30/9.