SAN FRANCISCO — The cartoonish Defensive Player of the Game chain is objectively the Nuggets’ corniest tradition, a blinged-up symbol of morale and affirmation usually reserved for college football sidelines rather than NBA locker rooms. If it seems one is too many, brace for impact.
“We only travel with one. We’ve gotta change that,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after a 119-103 win over the Warriors on Sunday. “Because if we had two chains, Nikola would have gotten the other one.”
The lone chain couldn’t belong to anyone else but Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for his dogged efforts in trying to out-cardio Steph Curry in the half-court. But in Nikola Jokic’s trio of videogame performances since the All-Star break, his defense has stood up respectably next to his offense. He’s averaging 27.3 points, 16.7 rebounds and 15 assists on 68.7% shooting … plus three “stocks,” a combination of blocks and steals.
When he’s on the floor this season, the Nuggets are allowing 112.1 points per 100 possessions, 1.3 below their overall total as a team.
As a crowded MVP race heats up with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic, Jokic’s four steals against Golden State were a testament to the trickiness in evaluating his defense. He’s not always noticeably impactful — the No. 1 argument skeptics make against his annual candidacy is that he’s a liability, even — but when he’s engaged in the game plan and actively anticipating an opponent’s next move the way he does on offense, he can be a master of his role in Denver’s defensive system.
“I’m not bad, not good,” Jokic said Sunday at Chase Center. “I’m in the middle.”
By the same token that Jokic doesn’t dunk the basketball often, he rarely swats shots or plays above the rim defensively. Instead, the Nuggets maximize their center’s strengths by having him guard higher up against ball screens than most big men in the NBA, subsequently leaning heavily on weak-side help from Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. to contain rollers. When Jokic can play from the middle of the floor, his vision and IQ work in sync with his quick hands.
“The more he’s up in pick-and-rolls and on the ball … that’s what he’s great at,” Caldwell-Pope said recently. “Just being up. Active hands. Getting deflections when they try to make that pocket pass.”
Jokic amassed five deflections to go with his four steals in Denver’s seventh consecutive win against the Warriors. As of the 56-game mark, he was tied for eighth in the league with 2.9 per game (as many as the absurdly wingspanned Victor Wembanyama). “That speaks to activity, that speaks to a physicality, that speaks to being in that right place in the right time,” said Malone. Disrupting the pocket pass is a facet of Jokic’s innate understanding of pick-and-roll angles, the same understanding that makes his two-man game with Jamal Murray so brilliant at the other end of the floor.
It’s not Murray he’s generally teaming up with to defend the pick-and-roll, though. It’s Caldwell-Pope, who’s regularly charged with premier backcourt matchups. The experienced Caldwell-Pope is one of the best guards in the league at navigating screens. But the Nuggets have minimal off-day practice time during the season to refine two-man defensive chemistry, and Jokic and Caldwell-Pope haven’t been playing their entire careers together. So, says Caldwell-Pope, it’s a matter of “learn on the go.”
“I feel like with Jok, in a pick-and-roll with him defensively, I know he’s gonna be up,” he said. “I know he has great hands, just like I have great hands. He’s gonna try to go for the steal as well. So just us two, being in that action, it helps me out a lot. It helps him just to get back to his man and helps me stay as close as possible to my man. That’s our game plan, him being up. And it’s good for our team, for him to be up.”
Caldwell-Pope added that his individual emphasis, to hound the ball-handler through the screen while Jokic also stays up, is made easier by Jokic dropping marginally behind him and being able to see other aspects of the play unfolding. “He reads plays faster than I can sometimes,” the former Laker said.
“That’s him, to be honest,” Jokic retorted of his chemistry with Caldwell-Pope. “I’m just there to not mess up. He’s a really good defender, and I’m there to just, try to help him a little bit. As much as I can. But it’s mostly him.”
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Malone places particular emphasis on the big coming up on screens against the Warriors, whose on- and off-ball actions are often predicated on freeing up Steph Curry for a 3-point attempt. Curry scored 14 points in the third quarter Sunday, but he shot 1-for-10 from 3-point range overall and scored only six points in the other three quarters combined. He turned it over three times. The Warriors did 17 times. Jokic’s active hands were clogging passing lanes.
“He’s so smart defensively,” Steve Kerr marveled.
Caldwell-Pope might be the one chasing Curry around the floor. But the way Denver defends most plays initiated by Curry requires a competent defensive big man as well. If that’s not enough to help earn Jokic a third MVP trophy, Malone will have to bring a second chain next time instead.
“You’re almost blitzing (Curry),” Malone said. “And Nikola was up every time in those pick-and-rolls to help contribute to what KCP was doing. So his engagement and his activity was off the charts.”