That defensive dilemma is not one Embiid can replicate. Double cover him, and he slices you wide open with his passing. If you single cover Jokic, whether in the regular season or the playoffs, he is going to destroy you in the post or with his feathery touch. The Nuggets run their offense through him and it cannot be defended. You see, what the numbers reflect but aren't necessary to understand if you watch the games is this: Jokic is a guaranteed quality shot. He was without a doubt the best player in a series that included Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. The man just averaged 34.5 points, 13.2 rebounds and 10.3 assists on 59/44/85 shooting splits in eliminating the Suns. The Nuggets are minus-2.2 per 100 in these playoffs with Jokic on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass. Over a large sample size, that is what it is.īut I'm not even going to make this about advanced numbers. That's a statistical way of saying they played like the best team in the league with him and pretty much the worst team without him. It bears repeating: The Nuggets were 25 points worse per 100 possessions when Jokic sat this season. He went 5 for 18 for 15 points on Sunday. He went 7 for 24 in Philly's elimination game last year. Embiid doesn't meet the moments in front of him on a consistent basis. This year, I'm sure Embiid apologists are going to claim he wasn't healthy. Jokic, for the record, has now been to two conference finals. And besides that, what, Embiid is some kind of playoff monster? After Embiid's Sixers were blown off the court by the Celtics in Game 7 on Sunday, Philly has now been bounced in the second round for the third straight year, and in increasingly embarrassing fashion, I might add. Go look at Jokic's postseason performances. It has never met even the baseline standard of a logical argument. This idea that Jokic somehow isn't the same dominant force in the postseason. Which is strange, because when so many people ran out of ways to diminish Nikola Jokic's so-called nerd-number dominance as a way of elevating Joel Embiid's case, the argument became about. I hear all the time that the NBA's MVP is a regular-season award.
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