Nuggets' Nikola Jokic off to slow start, from rebounding to efficiency: 'The struggle, it's a privilege'

DENVER — The Nuggets have a pile of problems contributing to their clunky 3-3 start. Their soon-to-be $360 million man is at the top of the heap.

The one constant in Denver, the one foundational reality on which every other variable depends, is that Nikola Jokic is one of the best basketball players on earth. That his minutes, if all else fails, will be a resounding success.

Jokic’s performance against Portland on Monday night was not a failure in a vacuum. He amassed 26 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and even four steals. He shot 10 for 22.

The Nuggets lost his minutes by three points. They lost the game by eight. They fell to 3-3. And they’re losing his 222 minutes this season by 2.3 points per 100 possessions.

Six games in, their foundational reality has not been the reality yet.

“We got our (butts) kicked on the glass,” coach David Adelman said after the 118-110 loss at Ball Arena. “… This was a really frustrating night. I just think we gave the game away just in the hustle categories.”

The glass is usually Jokic’s domain. It hasn’t been so far this season. Trail Blazers center Donovan Clingan grabbed twice as many as him Monday, including a whopping nine offensive rebounds to out-number Jokic’s eight defensive boards.

“I mean, the guy is really tall, you know? I feel like even when I kind of boxed out him, he would just grab the ball above me,” Jokic said. “And not just those. Even the tips. They were tipping to each other. It starts with me, of course, but I think it was a little bit of a collective effort. … The ball is gonna bounce everywhere. I think if you do the effort of boxing your guy out, that’s gonna help us a lot.”

Adelman agreed, cutting Jokic some slack while diagnosing the 53-37 discrepancy in individual rebounds. He pointed out that Portland doesn’t have a traditional four and was sending guards to crash the boards from every direction, creating tips and attainable 50-50 balls that Denver lost.

“Obviously Clingan (gets rebounds), but I thought a lot of those were — I’d say half of them were off of other people’s mistakes where you don’t win your own battle,” Adelman said. “And then Jok is taking on somebody else in the rotation, and (Clingan) ends up the benefactor of that. Especially in the second half.”

Still, the overall numbers indicate a precipitous drop in Jokic’s usual rebounding dominance so far. The Nuggets are ranked 26th in defensive rebounding rate (64.9%) after Monday’s loss, down from third place (71.7%) last season. They’ve ranked in the top half of the league in that category for six consecutive years.

Jokic is securing only 19.6% of all possible defensive rebounds when he’s on the floor, down from 27% last season. He’s been above 25% each of the last five seasons.

“We’ve gotta help Jok out,” Jamal Murray said. “I think we’ve just got accustomed to him grabbing so many boards against every single matchup, every single night. … We’ve gotta go in and hit somebody. Grab the ball.”

Murray has been Denver’s MVP at the offensive end of the floor — perhaps both a testament to his performance and an indictment of Jokic’s.

It’s not that the Serbian center has been a liability. He’s averaging 22 points and nine assists at the six-game mark, still orchestrating, still producing. But it’s merely All-NBA production, not best-in-the-NBA production.

Mostly, it’s a result of lackluster efficiency by Jokic’s ridiculous standard. He’s shooting 47.2% from the field — he has shot 56.6% or better in six consecutive years — and an especially troubling 22.6% from 3-point range on five attempts per game.

“I don’t know why, but when I’m shooting them and practicing them, I’m kind of making it,” he said. “But I’m not making in the game. But I think the struggle, it’s a privilege. Pushing to get better and pushing to think of what’s the problem.”

“Some of the shots that I think we’re so accustomed to seeing that he never misses — whether it be a jump hook or a 15-footer, all of those kind of things — they’re coming,” Adelman said. “This is a six-game sample size of one of the most efficient basketball players that’s ever lived. So I’ll die on that sword. … It’s like 10 for 22 for him is like he had a bad night, when everybody would want that for their superstar.”

The defining superpower of Denver’s superstar, regardless of his own stats, has always been his profound impact on the game around him. Jokic has been a walking top-10 offense for almost a decade, puppeteering entire lineups to generate open shot after open shot. The ease with which he usually accomplishes that has been elusive early this season — a more intangible and existential concern that relates to Denver’s identity as a team.

The Nuggets have pedestrian 112.9 offensive rating with him on the court, only 5.2 points better than when he’s off. Weirdly, every other Nuggets starter has a better on-off differential at that end of the floor (led by Murray’s 21.8).

The effect, even on a night when Jokic’s box score lent the appearance of dominance, was a lingering feeling that something was missing.

“I think when we play good, it’s really good,” Jokic said, “and when we play bad, it’s really bad. And we cannot find consistency or happy mediums.”