When I looked at the box-score of the Cavs-Nuggets game at halftime, with the Nuggets up by 24 points, I actually said out loud “Jokic isn’t going to get to play again.” Those are the words I said. The only reaction I got at the time was from my cat Japurri Purrker, who looked up from his nap, yawned, got to his feet, stretched, rotated twice, then laid back down in the same exact position he had been in previously.
Looking back on my comments, I can see that I was being hasty in my proclamation. Coaches will almost always start the second half with the starters, so Nikola Jokic was definitely going to get at least a few minutes in the third quarter. Still, I didn’t think he would get enough additional stats to record another triple-double. That’s where the Cavaliers did him a big favor. See, the Cavs had been playing poorly the whole game, but they picked it up in the third, and the Nuggets’ lead never got bigger. So Jokic was still out there on the court to keep the Cavs from making an even more significant run, which afforded him the chance to record the requisite stats for the triple-double.
Then, Jokic didn’t play for the entire fourth quarter. He had done his job well enough that coach Malone didn’t see the need to leave Jokic out there to maybe record a 25/15/15 line. Lame.