Nikola Jokic is not known for his shot-blocking abilities. He is not a rim-protector by any stretch of the imagination. No sane person would expect somebody with his physical profile (poor vertical jump, decent but not great wingspan, a plodder) to record a lot of blocks. But, somehow, he recorded three of them in this game despite averaging well fewer than one block per 36 minutes.
I went into this video thinking that all of the blocks would suck. NBA statskeepers are known for awarding spurious blocks to players who simply strip the ball out of an opponent’s hands while they’re near the basket. Jokic is capable of getting strips off ball-handlers, so that was my expectation here. I gave him about a 5% chance of really blocking three shots because of those two factors (statskeeper errancy and what I know about Jokic’s athleticism).
Surprise surprise, the statskeepers weren’t cooking Jokics’ stats like they often do: these blocks are legit. Okay, so maybe the first one was a pass that just happened to look like it could be a shot, but the other two are definitely shots that Jokic definitely rejects with authority. The blocked shots alone make this video worth watching, if you needed any more convincing, which you shouldn’t need because you are probably Serbian and you will watch anything with the word “Jokic” in the title.