Friday, March 10 - Celtics at Nuggets
Pregame – Surprise, Surprise: Jokic Likely To Play vs. C's
DENVER – It sounds as if the Boston Celtics will need to deal with Nikola Jokic tonight after all.
“I think Nikola is still questionable but I think he’s going to try to give it a go,” Nuggets head coach Michael Malone told reporters prior to tip-off of his big man, who is dealing with the flu. “Waiting for confirmation from my medical staff on that.”
Malone’s message was quite a dart in the opposite from direction his message at this morning’s shootaround, when he termed Jokic’s availability for tonight’s game as “very questionable.”
Jokic is one of the top up-and-coming players in the league. At 6-foot-10, he possesses a wide array of skills of which Brad Stevens detailed Friday morning.
“He’s incredibly talented. He’s a tremendously skilled player,” Stevens said of the 2-year-old big man. “He scores on the block, he’s terrific at the elbows, can really shoot, and he’s just a tremendous passer from the top of the key, from the elbow, from the block. He puts a lot of pressure – a lot like Al (Horford) – when he has the ball.”
Jokic enters tonight’s game ranked ninth in the NBA in player efficiency, ahead of perennial All-Stars such as DeMarcus Cousins, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, DeMar DeRozan, Stephen Curry and many others. He owns season averages of 15.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.
Those numbers are quite similar to Horford’s averages of 13.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game, especially when taking into consideration that Jokic’s usage percentage (22.9) is much higher than Horford’s (19.9).
Celtics fans know how much different their team looks when Horford is available to play. The same can be said for Nuggets fans, who have seen how great of an impact Jokic makes on Denver’s team.
It appeared this morning as if Boston wouldn’t be forced to deal with Jokic’s impact. However, that outlook has taken quite a turn ahead of tip-off, and everyone inside the Pepsi Center expects Jokic to be out there on the court for the opening tip.
- Marc D'Amico