DETROIT — Michael Malone must not like the view from the visiting team’s bench in Detroit.
For the second season in a row, he was prepared to spend his annual visit to Little Caesar’s Arena alone in a windowless room, instead of in his usual space on the Nuggets’ sideline. “Be ready to coach,” he told David Adelman, his lead assistant.
It was 49 seconds into the game.
Malone thought his technical foul Friday against the Pistons was “one of the quicker techs I’ve ever gotten.” It was certainly one of the loudest, judging by both its immediate timing and the broader statement it symbolized.
“I was just going to let those three officials know that I’m not gonna allow that to happen tonight, where they’re just going to grab, hold, impede Nikola Jokic,” Malone said after Denver’s 134-119 win. “That is not the game plan moving forward to stop us or Nikola.”
The Pistons were leading 2-0, thanks to a steal from Jokic and a fast-break dunk. They had already made their defensive intentions crystal clear, not merely pushing Jokic off his spots, but blockading his every movement when he didn’t have the ball. While he was attempting to climb over or swim around a handsy Jalen Duren from the 3-point line down to the left elbow, spectators’ attention was elsewhere. Jamal Murray took the ball to the top of the key after receiving a handoff from Christian Braun.
Malone watched the situation unfold between Jokic and Duren. The 10th-year Nuggets coach got up from his seat and planted himself inbounds and in the face of umpire Natalie Sago, blocking her view of the action.
In other words: He was begging for the technical.
“It’s my job as a head coach to protect and fight for my guys,” Malone said. “And that’s all that was. … It was just to let Natalie know. She’s a very good ref. It wasn’t anything personal. It never is. But just me trying to fight for my guys and let the referees know, if I have to get tossed tonight to fight for my guys, I’ll definitely do so. But I didn’t have to.”
Jokic ended up with 23 points, 17 rebounds and 15 assists in the win. Eleven of his points were collected at the foul line, one night after Denver only took 11 free-throw attempts as a team in Milwaukee.
But the point Malone wanted to make — however concentrated his perspective was in the moment — was relevant to more than just 49 seconds of February basketball. For years, one of the only occasionally effective methods of defending Jokic has been for opposing players to hack and hold their breath. Former Lakers coach Darvin Ham might have accidentally captured this ideology best when he joked before the 2023 Western Conference Finals that the superior strategy for Jokic is to “try to catch him outside of his house and kidnap him.”
Somewhat ironically, Ham’s successor in Los Angeles, JJ Redick, put that into practice last weekend with a winning game plan that swarmed and barricaded Jokic off the ball. It’s grounded in the same principle that plenty of other teams have tried. In the second round of the playoffs last year, the Timberwolves were not afraid to dare the officials to call fouls, leading to a build-up of frustration for Denver.
The Pistons wanted to recreate the same strife on Friday.
Malone wanted to squash it right away, no matter the cost.
“There is a thing called freedom of movement in this league,” he said.
“I think there was just a lot of aggressiveness and aggressive defense. I like when people are (physical),” Jokic told The Denver Post when asked if he’s seeing more of that approach recently. “Like, I know where (the defender) is at least, when he’s into me and aggressive. But there is a level of what’s a foul and what’s not a foul.”
Malone ended up making it through the game without incriminating himself further, avoiding a deja vu moment to last season when he and Jokic both got ejected in Detroit.
Jokic didn’t score much from the field, but the Pistons struggled to get away with physical defense against him the rest of the night. Backup center Isaiah Stewart picked up four fouls and a technical by halftime. The Nuggets shot 31 free throws as a team.
Maybe Malone simply needs to take a technical foul in the first minute of every game.
“I haven’t had any conversations with the league recently about anything in terms of how we perceive that we’re being refereed,” he said afterward. “The great thing about our league is you always have the ability to do so. They’re very open and willing to communicate, and they’ll give you their honest feedback. They’re not gonna tell you what you want to hear; they’re gonna (say), ‘Well this is how we see it.’
“But no, tonight was just me making sure that I wasn’t going to allow Nikola just to be held and grabbed and all that stuff for 48 minutes. That’s just not the way this game is officiated.”