By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
“It was that kind of night,” Jokić humbly described another one of his masterful performances, as he dazzled the Indiana Pacers with a personal-best 19 assists.
As always, the Serbian center made it look easy, setting up his teammates play after play as the Denver Nuggets cruised past Indiana at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Asked about his career-high after the match, the three-time NBA MVP seemed, as he often does, unbothered.
“Every game is different. Today, people were making shots, people were cutting, and I was finding them, so it was that kind of night,” Jokić said and admitted he still prefers making a pass to scoring. “Of course, yes, yes.”
Naturally, he wasn’t even aware during the game that he was doing something he had never done before.
“No, I don’t [keep track], but it’s nice to know,” Jokić said about setting a new personal record.
However, even though Jokić remained humble and downplayed another great performance, the man who witnessed his latest achievement firsthand—Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton—was more than impressed.
“If you mess up a defensive coverage, he’s going to find it and expose it. There aren’t many times you can make a mistake and him not figure it out. You see his numbers—19 assists—that’s unbelievable for a guy his size. What he’s done in our league and what he continues to do is second to none. He’s unbelievable,” Haliburton said.
The Olympic gold medalist and one of the NBA’s standout point guards believes the Nuggets play a unique brand of basketball because of their Serbian giant.
“Every time I made a mistake, he made me pay. What he does obviously poses a different threat, and we’ve got to be better. I’ve got to be better, especially down the stretch—I probably made a couple of mistakes that he just capitalized on. But I feel like the Nuggets really embody the terrible narrative from people who don’t understand the NBA, saying we all play the same. Nobody plays like them. Nobody can play like them because of what he does. They pose a different threat, and he’s unbelievable,” Haliburton concluded.