DENVER — The previously struggling Nikola Jokic delivered a patented 27-point, 16-assist, 12-rebound triple-double at a time his Denver Nuggets needed it most and received enough help from his supporting cast to temporarily keep their season alive.
The final: a 125-113 Nuggets win Monday night, setting up a high-stakes Game 6 on Thursday night in Minneapolis as the Timberwolves try to finish it off at home.
“Physicality, focus,” Jokic said. “I have been here before. When you’re playing an elimination game, you need to be extremely focused.”
Denver entered as an 11-point Game 5 favorite against a Minnesota team that no longer has the injured Anthony Edwards or Donte DiVincenzo, but angst about the state of the Nuggets had still set in locally.
Denver entered the playoffs as the third seed, considered a legitimate title contender. But the Nuggets had lost three straight games in increasingly demoralizing fashion, getting outscored 62-42 in the second half of Game 4 despite DiVincenzo and Edwards getting helped off the floor with serious injuries in the first half.
“Just an embarrassing first four games of the series,” Nuggets guard Christian Braun said.
Both teams are beat up. The Nuggets have been without Peyton Watson all series because of a strained hamstring and have been forced to deactivate a hobbled Aaron Gordon two out of the last three games because of a calf issue, stripping them of their wing depth.
Without either, the scoring burden on Jokic and Jamal Murray only increased and neither of the team’s All-Stars responded well. Both entered Game 5 making below 40 percent of their shots in the series. Jokic, at 39.1 percent, was 17 points below his career conversion rate and eight percentage points below his previous worst playoff series (47.1 percent).
“Jok is Jok,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said. “These (small) sample size games and the freak outs when he doesn’t play well. You know he’s going to play well. Then his 16 assists. Assists are hard to get unless you make shots.”
The Nuggets were a collective 28.5 percent on 3s in the first four games after leading the NBA at 39.5 percent as a team during the regular season. Adelman was critical of the team’s soft screen-setting, but also expressed an expectation that the percentages would progress to the mean.
In Game 5, they made a more characteristic 11-of-29 from deep (38 percent), including some necessary makes from the struggling role players. Spencer Jones, starting in place of the injured Gordon, made four 3s and scored 20 points after only three 3s and 12 combined points the first four games.
Cam Johnson, the franchise’s prized offseason trade acquisition for Michael Porter Jr., had his loudest game of the series, adding 18 points and three of the team’s 16 steals. The Nuggets turned the Timberwolves over 25 times for 35 points, taking full advantage of an opponent suddenly without its starting backcourt.
On the Minnesota side, Jaden McDaniels — a central figure in this budding NBA rivalry — had his worst game of the series. McDaniels fouled twice in the opening minutes, strapping him to the bench for an extended stretch and eventually turned the ball over four times and missed all three of his 3s.
McDaniels generated headlines after the Game 2 win in Denver when he called several Nuggets players “bad defenders.” He then sparked a skirmish at the end of Game 4 after making a layup with 1.3 seconds in a blowout, inciting Jokic to confront him for what the Denver center said was breaking an unwritten rule.
In response, the Denver crowd booed McDaniels throughout the night and the Nuggets got into a few dust-ups with him. Jokic and backup center Jonas Valanciunas confronted him at separate times.
“Nothing dirty,” McDaniels said. “It’s all fun to me. I feed into it. We just got to get the job done next game and there’s no more talking.”
On the Denver side, there’s a growing level of pessimism about the availability of either Watson or Gordon for Game 6 on Thursday night. Adelman said he had “no idea” about either but they’d game-plan with the expectation both wings remained out. Gordon tried to play for 23 minutes in Game 4, but couldn’t move well.
On the Minnesota side, DiVincenzo is out for the season after his Achilles tear Saturday night and surgery Sunday. Edwards is considered week-to-week with a bone bruise in his left knee. The Timberwolves hope to get him back later in the playoffs, but they’ll need to survive this series for any chance at cracking open that door.
“We just ended up losing today,” McDaniels said. “But we gonna win the next one.”
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