OKLAHOMA CITY — Nikola Jokic‘s sensational slump-busting performance was not enough to prevent the Denver Nuggets from being pushed to the brink of playoff elimination.
After the worst three-game shooting funk of his career, Jokic returned to dominant form with a 44-point performance in Tuesday’s Game 5. But the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder still pulled out a 112-105 win to take the lead for the first time in this Western Conference semifinals series.
“Nikola played incredible,” Nuggets interim coach David Adelman said. “I thought our effort was incredible, but we can play a lot better. I think it’s in these guys that if we create the open shots we created tonight, we’re going to have games where guys make shots behind it. … If we can complement 17-of-25, 44 points with some other guys finding a rhythm out there, we’re very capable of doing special things. And that includes Thursday [in Game 6], and that includes the weekend if we can get back here.”
As Adelman noted, Jokic was 17-of-25 from the field in Game 5, including 5-of-7 from 3-point range. His final bucket was a spectacular version of his signature “Sombor Shuffle” shot, a turnaround fadeaway 3-pointer off his right foot over 7-foot-1 Chet Holmgren‘s tight defense that tied the score with 1:39 remaining.
The Thunder responded with an 8-0 run as Jokic’s teammates missed 3s on the next three possessions. Jokic had 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting in the fourth quarter, but the rest of the Nuggets combined to score only six points on 1-of-15 shooting, missing all 10 3-point attempts, in the final frame.
“It’s not like we turned the ball over,” Jokic said. “I think we had the open looks. We just didn’t score in those moments. I think we had the looks that we wanted to have.”
Jokic had struggled mightily by his three-time MVP standards in the previous three games entering Tuesday night. He shot 33.3% from the field (21-of-63) during that span, marking the first time in his career that he shot worse than 40% in three consecutive games in which he had a minimum of 15 attempts.
Not surprisingly, Jokic was nonplussed about his drastic uptick in efficiency in Game 5.
“They were still doing what they’re doing,” Jokic said regarding the Thunder’s top-ranked defense. “The ball was going in.”
Jokic scored 29 points on 11-of-12 shooting with Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein as his primary defender. Hartenstein had previously held Jokic to a total of 40 points on 14-of-35 shooting as the primary defender in the series.
“He had better legs,” Adelman said. “The face-up jump shot always gets him going. He makes one of those early, and he made the touch shots around the rim that seemed like they haven’t been going his way lately, which is surprising because he’s been so good at them for so long. Once he saw those go in, it just kind of unleashed everything else.”
Nuggets co-star Jamal Murray had a scoring flurry of 13 points in the third quarter to help Denver build a 12-point lead, but he missed nine of his final shots from the field. He scoffed at the notion that Jokic’s rough shooting stretch during the series merited any scrutiny.
“I don’t even think it’s his fault for missing a couple of tough shots that he’s been making his whole career, said Murray, who finished with 28 points on 10-of-27 shooting. “I don’t think that’s fair.
“If you’re looking for somebody to blame, I think I need to do better. I didn’t shoot the ball as well as I needed to today, and I had some sloppy turnovers. I could have taken command of the ball a little more maybe down stretch and got us a little more organized or something. But I think he’s been playing amazing. I think he does everything he can to win every single night.”
Jokic also finished with 15 rebounds and five assists while playing 44 minutes, including the entire second half.
According to ESPN Research, he became the first player in NBA history to record multiple 40-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist outings in a series, as Jokic had 42 points, 22 rebounds and 6 assists in Denver’s Game 1 comeback win. The only other player to have two such performances in a single postseason was LeBron James in 2012.
The Nuggets are optimistic that Jokic can have similar production in Game 6, and that the other Denver players can do their part to extend the series.
“He can do it again,” Nuggets wing Christian Braun said. “We’ve seen it time and time again. We know the player he is. We know the player Jamal Murray is, and we got a lot of guys that I think need to hit more shots and guys that will hit more shots. We just didn’t make enough down the stretch, but we will. And that guy can do it again, so we know we have a chance.”
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