With or without Nikola Jokic on the floor, Nuggets trying to make most of minutes

MIAMI — A minor stir sparked late Sunday in the minutes after Game 2 of the 2023 Finals over the merits of Nikola Jokic as a scorer vs. Nikola Jokic as a passer.

Which at least was a nice change of pace, since most of the concern in recent seasons for the Denver Nuggets and their fans has been the impact of Jokic as a sitter.

One way to evaluate a player’s value to his team is to compare how it does with him on the court vs. when he’s not. How much does the team’s performance drop off? Does it drop off considerably? It’s an indirect way of assessing a star’s supporting cast, or to put it simply: How much help does he have?

Well, Jokic’s on/off numbers have ticked up in each of the past three regular seasons. In his first MVP season of 2020-21, his impact on the Nuggets was plus-8.9 points per 100 possessions, with Denver scoring more when he was in games and allowing fewer.

A year later, Jokic’s presence vs. absence nearly doubled statistically. They outscored opponents by 8.4 points per 100 possessions when he played, while giving 7.9 fewer points per 100 with him in the game. Add those up and Jokic on the floor was worth 16.3 points in net rating.

The message to rival teams was obvious: If you couldn’t win the minutes when the Serbian center was in the game, strike big whenever he exited. At his average of roughly 33 minutes per game, that left 15 most nights to pick up and surpass any slack.

Curiously, as the Nuggets matured into a Finals contender this season and got improved health from the likes of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., their with-or-without Joker numbers ballooned. They were double-digits better in scoring, double-digits worse in defending. Over the 82-game regular season, his plus-22.9 rating was the biggest gap in the NBA.

Consider the two other top Kia MVP candidates this season: Milwaukee was 8.6 points per 100 better with Giannis Antetokounmpo on the floor, while Philadelphia was 10.3 better with award winner Joel Embiid.

Jokic’s presence/absence was more than those two stars’ combined.

So the standard scenario was for Nuggets coach Michael Malone to get Jokic his breathers each night, then hustle him back into the game while hoping any dropoff was small. Some nights, though, it was as if his team stepped into an empty elevator shaft.

“Regular season, some of those non-Nikola minutes were somewhat of a crapshoot,” Malone said over the weekend in Denver. “You didn’t know what you were going to get.”

Then something unexpected happened. The playoffs started, Malone tightened and tinkered with his rotation and suddenly Jokic began to look … OK, not less valuable. But a little less indispensable.

Through 17 playoff games, Jokic’s on/off impact is a more reasonable plus-9.4. The Nuggets have been consistent, with fewer hiccups when their star has gotten his usual rest at the start of the second and fourth quarters.

“When Nikola has gone out, the other guys have stepped up and played well,” Malone said. “Right now, we have a three-man bench group: Bruce Brown, Jeff Green, Christian Braun. I think those guys are playing well. If Nikola is out, Jamal and Michael or both of them are on the floor so we have two of our top three scorers on the court at all times.”

Said Jokic: “I think in the past somebody is always injured. We never had a constant group of guys coming off the bench. Now when we kind of know the rotation, I think the guys are doing a really good job of playing and being aggressive and attacking when they see the seams.”

During the regular season, Denver sagged at both ends without Jokic. In the postseason, the difference has shown on offense – in fact, the other guys have been only minus-0.3 points per 100. Then they play a bit faster than when Jokic is involved.

“If you can get stops, you can get out and run,” Malone said. “That’s when that group is at its best, because you don’t have the luxury of coming down and playing through Nikola in the post or wherever it may be. So defend, rebound, run, and then other guys just playing their game and playing the games to the best of their ability.”

Forward Aaron Gordon said: “Defense. That’s probably the most important, crucial aspect of the non-Nikola Jokic minutes because … that’s how we get our offense, as well.”

As big a “thing” as the non-Jokic minutes became this season, Gordon said the Nuggets never approached those stretches as something they needed to survive.

“No, no, definitely thrive,” he said. “I feel like surviving is almost like fear-based. No, we ain’t got no fear.”

Which brings us to this current seam in the Finals, heading to Game 3 at Kaseya Center (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC). Through two games, the non-Jokic stat has flipped again: The Nuggets have been plus-3.0 in the 82:20 minutes the two-time MVP has played, compared to plus-5.0 in the 13:40 he has sat.

Game 1 initially went according to the usual script. Denver was plus-22 through the first three quarters with Jokic, minus-1 in 4:42 of the second period when he sat. In the fourth, though, shoddy defense and some sharper Miami shooting shaved eight points off Jokic’s plus number.

Game 2 got weirder still. The Nuggets were 14 points better than Miami in the 4:55 of the second quarter they played without Jokic, as Murray and Porter combined for 17 points while the Heat shot 41% and missed seven of nine 3-pointers.

Miami’s quick start and 36-25 blowout in the fourth quarter stuck all the Nuggets with negatives. Combine the final 12 minutes of both games and the Heat have been 21 points better.

Denver’s desperation for points from somewhere, anywhere fueled the “Jokic as scorer” narrative as he got 10 of his 41 in that final quarter. Miami coach Erik Spoelstra bristled at that, sniffing disrespect for Jokic (or exposure of a Heat strategy).

Those minutes without Jokic will bear watching as the series continues. If foul trouble or an injury forces him out for longer stints, the Nuggets aren’t as vulnerable as they have been but it’s nothing they want to test.

“There’s going to be different skirmishes throughout the game – end of quarters, end of halves, moments when he’s maybe going to be off the floor – you want to maximize,” Miami’s Duncan Robinson said. “You’re maybe not going to win them all but we want to win more than we lose.

“They play a little bit different without him, so try to make it a little difficult for them. So much runs through him. His ability to pass and play-make keeps everybody a live option all the time. [Without him] they kind of change their offensive flow.”

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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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