Jimmy Butler has praised MVP Nikola Jokic twice, but not for the reasons you might think.
The Miami Heat fell 0-1 to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals. Nikola Jokic’s attacking brilliance was on full display in the first match. He lost 27 points on 12 shots and had 14 assists with just two turnovers. Poise, subtlety, sweet dynamism – no one works on Joker’s level right now.
But for Miami’s Jimmy Butler, Jokic’s praise extends far beyond his offensive repertoire. Butler credited the Nuggets star for his defense as well.
“As far as people look at what he does on the offensive end, he’s a hell of a defender, too,” Butler said (h/t Tim McMahon from ESPN).
Surprisingly, Jimmy Butler credits Nikola Jokic for his defence
Jokic has been hailed as a defensive liability for nearly his entire career. The basis of MVP Joel Embiid’s argument was, for a large part of the electorate, that Jokic is a one-way player. Much of the concern with Jokic’s ability to translate his elite seasonal production into the playoffs was the fact that, in theory, he couldn’t defend on the biggest stage.
Calling Jokic an “infernal” defender might be an understatement. Jokic is by no means an elite edge protector. His limited foot speed can be exploited by fickle guards in space and we just saw Bam Adebayo drop 26 points on 52 percent shooting in Game 1 because of all the easy catches he got in open pockets around the paint.
Having said that, criticism of Jokić’s defense has often been extreme. He took a month off from maximum effort at the end of the regular season, which colored many opinions of him and won him the Embiid Award mainly over MVP award. But when he’s active and engaged, Jokic’s uncanny intellect is Do Translate to the defensive end. He is an excellent midfielder who can communicate with his teammates and organize coverage. He also has some of the best hands in the sport – he averaged 1.3 steals per game during the regular season.
What he lacks in athleticism, Jokic can mostly make up for with positioning and intelligence. He’ll always be limited to projection coverage and will always give up a pacing advantage in some games, but he’s far from unplayable in the postseason. Fortunately, this false narrative has finally been thrown out.