Im trying Jennifer- CJ McCollum August 15, 2018 Let’s hope Jokic makes it out of the ice bath and to the arena, let alone through even his usual allotment of minutes. local, the Nuggets and Blazers will do it all over again. That’s a nice gesture for now, but the big repercussion from his decision won’t come until Sunday, when, at 4 p.m. And while his final line was well-fed (sorry)-33 points, 18 rebounds, 14 assists-he wasn’t all that effective in the war of attrition: Jokic shot 12-for-20 in regulation, but just 1-for-5 in the four overtimes.Īfterward, Malone told reporters that he apologized to Jokic for having played him so much. But the diminishing returns started around the second overtime, when Jokic-who, again, usually played less than half as many minutes in the regular season-began wobbling around like he had just done leg day for the first time in his life. We get it-it’s a crucial playoff game, in a hostile arena, and you want to ride the players you can trust. Jokic’s backup, Mason Plumlee-who, lest we forget, is making the fourth-highest salary on this team-played 12 minutes. That’s the fourth-most playing time any player has logged, in any game, in all of playoff history. And then in Friday’s Game 3, Nuggets coach Michael Malone nearly killed one of the best players in franchise history by playing him 65 goddamn minutes. In Game 1 against the Trail Blazers, he got through 41 minutes. In a Game 7 closeout of the Spurs, he logged 43 minutes. And Jokic, to his credit, has kept on chugging away. He’s two years away from being two years away from his Best Shape of My Life season, so for now, he just rumbles until he can’t anymore, like an old tugboat.īut as the games have gotten more important this postseason, the Nuggets have needed more Jokic. And while some of it can get a bit mean, it’s also not unfounded-though he played in 80 games, Jokic averaged just 31 minutes in the regular season, which is quite low for an MVP candidate. Jokic, a mayonnaise jar of a man, has been bashed throughout his breakthrough fourth NBA season for his lackluster conditioning. Justin Verrier : We almost watched an All-Star die on his feet on Friday. Loser: Nikola Jokic’s Physical Well-Being But who needs all that when you get to be a folk hero? Winner: Nikola Jokic’s Determination Often injured and under-used in Utah, and an afterthought in LeBron’s final Cleveland season, Hood has never lived up to the hype that surrounded him heading into his career at Duke. RODNEY HOOD WANTS TO GO TO BED /uxREjnrDIr- Dime May 4, 2019 Hood-who has been something of a piñata over the years for his now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t game- skipped onto the court. Hood, who finished Game 3 with a tidy 19 points on eight shots, in 24 minutes played, joined the late, late show with 1:59 remaining in the fourth overtime, replacing Moe Harkless, who seemed to suffer an injury related to playing 45 minutes of playoff basketball. I’m sure there were some Hawk actions or some SLOB plays called at some point, but in the end, all Stotts had to do was send Rodney Hood out there because Rodney Hood wasn’t shattered with muscle-shocking exhaustion. This was Terry Stotts’s big idea in Portland’s surreal 140-137 win over Denver. And then there’s looking at your bench, seeing a guy who isn’t in dire need of an IV bag and 18 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and putting him into a quadruple-overtime game being played by the cast of Night of the Living Dead. Here are all the Winners and Losers from a Game 3 we’ll never forget.Ĭhris Ryan: There’s a lot of advanced strategy and tactical maneuvering that goes into coaching in the NBA playoffs. It had bodily sacrifice, unlikely heroes, and an ethically questionable amount of minutes played, but in the end it was Rodney Hood time. While you were sleeping, the Blazers and Nuggets played a quadruple-overtime classic, with Portland winning a war of attrition, 140-137.
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