If Russell Westbrook was coaching against the Nuggets, he would do the same thing.
Don’t let Nikola Jokic touch the ball. Funnel it elsewhere. Dare the MVP’s teammates to beat you instead.
Westbrook, a former MVP himself, happens to be one of the MVP’s teammates now. It’s been difficult to feed Jokic lately, but the 36-year-old point guard remains dead-set on getting the ball to his center.
“The best player on the court, in the world, is Nikola Jokic. So I’ll turn it over 20 times trying to pass him the ball. I don’t really care,” Westbrook said after Denver’s 116-110 win over the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday. “It’s the reason why they’ve got five people in the paint. If I’m the other team, I’d try to do that too. It’s our job as a supporting cast to make sure we help make the game easier for him.”
Teams are dramatically packing the paint against Jokic and confronting Westbrook — among other Nuggets — with a difficult proposition: Prove the defense wrong by knocking down open 3s, at the risk of playing into the opponents’ hands? Attack a clogged lane? Force a pass into traffic?
Before providing an answer late Wednesday night, Westbrook wanted to know where the Nuggets (40-22) rank this season in 3-point percentage. As of Thursday, they’re third-best in the NBA with a 38% clip and second-best from the corners, at 43.4%. The catch is their volume, of course. Denver sustains a healthy efficiency in part by taking smart 3s. No other team attempts fewer.
Individually, Westbrook is 44.3% from the corners and 33.3% overall on the perimeter, making this the second-best outside shooting season of his career. His 4-for-7 night against Sacramento was highlighted by a spot-up triple with 1:28 to go, doubling Denver’s lead.
“Obviously some people only watch the (national) TV games, so they watched the Boston game, and everybody has a comment,” Westbrook said. “But throughout the year, consistently, I didn’t hear any of this talk before. Now all of a sudden it’s like, oh, we lose to the Lakers … everybody’s losing their mind. And personally, internally, we don’t panic. Play the right way. … Get stops. Run in transition. Because we’re the best transition team in the league. So when we get stops, you can’t load up (on Jokic) then. So our defense has gotta help our offense.”
Indeed, the Nuggets lead the league with 19.9 fast-break points per game. They’re one of only 10 teams averaging at least 1.15 points per possession in transition. But their defense has been average at best for most of the season, in the words of coach Michael Malone, allowing opponents to get back and play a set defense after making shots.
And when that happens? Jokic is getting fronted, doubled, tripled, tugged, hugged and “mugged,” as Malone described it Wednesday.
Meanwhile, opposing defenses couldn’t care less that Westbrook, Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson are shooting more than respectably from the corners, or that Christian Braun is a career 37% shooter beyond the arc. Part of the calculus is that driving the volume of attempts up should drag the percentages down, if the Nuggets bite. Regardless of the result, teams clearly see those shots as a safer bet than letting Jokic operate.
“And it’s not just about shooting 3s,” Westbrook continued. “I think that there’s a lot happening in the game, and I think people outside of the game of basketball don’t truly understand that it’s not just about, ‘Walk up. He’s playing off. Shoot the three.’ Like, that’s not a real thing. Watch the game; you’ll understand how the game goes, how people are guarding, why they’re doing it, who they’re doing it to. It’s bigger than just 3-point percentage and 3-point shots.”
Westbrook has thrived throughout the season as a cutter and pocket passer alongside Jokic, enabling their synergy to flow in both directions. But defenses are also trying to take away the usual passing lanes that Jokic uses to find intuitive cutters like Westbrook and Braun. And Malone noted Wednesday that opponents are even fronting Jokic in pick-and-rolls, rendering it as difficult as possible for daring distributors like Westbrook to thread the needle.
It’s leaving Westbrook and Braun in limbo. In the last two games, they have combined to attempt 29 shots from the 3-point line. Braun estimated after taking 22 total shots in Boston that he hadn’t attempted that many since high school.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Braun said when asked about opponents sagging off of him. “You can’t let Nikola score. You can’t help off Mike (Porter Jr.). You can’t help off Jamal (Murray).”
Malone delivered a message to his team in the locker room at halftime of the Nuggets’ eventual win over the Kings. They trailed by 10 at the time. “Fellas, get used to this,” he recalled saying. “We’re going to see this for the next 20 games. Teams are not guarding anybody not named No. 15, Nikola Jokic. So you can take it personally. It’s gonna happen.”
It’ll be more than the next 20. Tacticians are likely to double down on the approach in the playoffs, as they have against Westbrook in the past, and as they did against Denver’s role players last year. “Don’t hesitate,” Jokic said Wednesday of Westbrook and Braun. “Just shoot the ball. I think they’re shooting well, really good. … Just shoot the ball.”
Westbrook’s clearly not afraid to do that. His top priority, though, is still to work the ball back to Jokic whenever it’s doable.
“It’s very motivating,” he said of the coverage. “It’s part of my job, if I’m on the floor, to make the game easy for him. If that’s cutting, if that’s making shots, if that’s screening, if that’s whatever, I’m willing to do whatever it is that’s needed. Teams have had a little bit of success, so that’s what they’re gonna go to. But we’ll see how it plays out.”
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.
Originally Published: March 6, 2025 at 8:32 AM MST
