Yes, I am aware that the boxscore and play-by-play credit Nikola Jokic with 11 assists. I wouldn’t make such a simple error (actually I would, you guys never notice if I’m missing an assist). Here’s the deal: his 11th assist occurred on a play where he didn’t touch the ball for the final 10 seconds of the possession, and multiple passes occurred before the shot was made. Unlike a couple games ago where he notched a laughable assist after Will Barton dribbled the length of the court to score, there is no way for an assist to be credited to Jokic in this case. So I didn’t show it, utilizing a fancy thing called editorial discretion. He still gets the triple-double, though, so it’s all good.
I guess we can say that he has moved past the part of his career where he gets assists for not really doing much, to the part of his career where he gets assists for literally doing nothing at all. Great! Triple-doubles are gonna be a lot easier for him to acquire if he merely has to be on the court to get rewarded with assists by the scorekeepers. Watch out Scott Skiles! There’s a dude coming for your single-game assist record, and he doesn’t even have to play against one of those frighteningly-paced 80’s-90’s Nuggets teams to do it!