{"id":174689,"date":"2025-04-05T10:20:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T08:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/?p=174689"},"modified":"2025-04-05T10:20:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T08:20:20","slug":"jokic-dominates-but-in-vain-red-light-flashing-in-denver-new-loss-jeopardizes-playoff-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/jokic-dominates-but-in-vain-red-light-flashing-in-denver-new-loss-jeopardizes-playoff-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"JOKI\u0106 DOMINATES, BUT IN VAIN: Red light flashing in Denver, new loss jeopardizes playoff spot!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It seems even <strong>Nikola Joki\u0107<\/strong> has had enough. It\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve seen the Serbian center this frustrated, as he was against <strong>Golden State<\/strong>. There&#8217;s frequent talk that he often has to go it alone \u2014 and that was absolutely the case again on Friday night. He gave it his all against the Warriors on the road, but it wasn\u2019t enough (118:104).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He recorded <strong>33 points<\/strong> (9\/10 for two, 4\/7 for three, 3\/3 free throws), along with <strong>12 rebounds<\/strong>, <strong>nine assists<\/strong>, <strong>two steals<\/strong>, but also <strong>six turnovers<\/strong>. That still wasn&#8217;t enough to beat the Warriors, where he had a real chance to show <strong>Draymond Green<\/strong> why he&#8217;s the best basketball player on the planet and that no one can guard him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Draymond Green has been receiving daily praise for his defense over the past two months and has suddenly jumped ahead of <strong>Dyson Daniels<\/strong> and <strong>Evan Mobley<\/strong> as the main favorite to win <strong>Defensive Player of the Year<\/strong>. Such a media push hasn\u2019t been seen in a while, and it slightly resembles the battle between <strong>Joel Embiid<\/strong> and <strong>Nikola Joki\u0107<\/strong> for the <strong>2023 MVP<\/strong>, when the award, thanks to a media campaign, ended up in the hands of the Cameroonian center. It seems likely that <strong>Draymond<\/strong>, with strong media backing from analysts and former players \u2014 and even himself \u2014 will become Defensive Player of the Year for the second time in his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then came an old problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joki\u0107 left the game \u2014 and the offense disappeared. Denver couldn\u2019t score a single point for four minutes, and the Warriors took full advantage. The second unit was a disaster, from <strong>Russell Westbrook<\/strong> to <strong>Vlatko \u010can\u010dar<\/strong>, who did nothing in three minutes. The Nuggets&#8217; second unit sucked the life out of the game \u2014 and the starters \u2014 so when <strong>Nikola<\/strong> and the others returned, it was already too late. The home team had taken control, went into halftime with a +6 lead, and the guests looked completely disoriented. They entered the third quarter the same way. <strong>Joki\u0107<\/strong> hit <strong>four three-pointers<\/strong>, three of them in four minutes, but even that wasn\u2019t enough. <strong>Aaron Gordon<\/strong> looked like a bowling pin on defense, <strong>Westbrook<\/strong> made mistakes and kept bricking shots, prompting a visibly exhausted Serbian star to lose his temper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He rested for a few minutes at the start of the fourth quarter, returned quickly, but <strong>Golden State<\/strong> had already built a double-digit lead \u2014 which, for this Denver team without <strong>Jamal Murray<\/strong>, dealing with fatigue and total lack of focus, was too much. The <strong>Warriors<\/strong> deservedly took the win, and now a new problem looms for <strong>Denver<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><mark style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#d21414\" class=\"has-inline-color\">FIND OUT MORE:<\/mark><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fserbiantimes%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0xk3qjGk8zp8bAF6xLAffU8ifKN5ZPY6JrgZZbihm22zNjo7HvCPzMWN5g4ciHax2l&#038;show_text=true&#038;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"595\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>They now have the same record as the <strong>Lakers (47-30)<\/strong>, just one win more than the <strong>Warriors (46-41)<\/strong>, and two more than <strong>Minnesota<\/strong>, <strong>Memphis<\/strong>, and the <strong>Clippers<\/strong>, but also one game more played. With four games left in the season, not only could Denver lose <strong>home-court advantage<\/strong>, but they could also drop into the <strong>play-in<\/strong>. Remaining games include <strong>home matchups with Indiana and Memphis<\/strong>, and <strong>away games against Sacramento and Houston<\/strong>. It will be extremely difficult to hold on to one of the top four positions \u2014 third or fourth \u2014 which would secure home-court advantage in the NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Golden State<\/strong> was led to victory by <strong>Steph Curry<\/strong> with 36 points, <strong>Brandin Podziemski<\/strong> with 26, and <strong>Jimmy Butler<\/strong> with 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alongside Joki\u0107, standout performances for Denver came from <strong>Michael Porter Jr.<\/strong> with 23, <strong>Christian Braun<\/strong> with 16, and <strong>Aaron Gordon<\/strong> with 15 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><mark style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#d21414\" class=\"has-inline-color\">MORE TOPICS:<\/mark><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/marin-le-pen-osudjena-za-proneveru-preti-joj-5-godina-zatvora-i-zabrana-vrsenja-javne-funkcije\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">MARINE LE PEN CONVICTED OF EMBEZZLEMENT: She faces 5 years in prison and a ban from holding public office!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/interview-duricko-the-glory-and-misery-of-my-hollywood-will-i-return-to-serbia-and-why-i-support-the-students-video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">INTERVIEW, \u0110URI\u010cKO: The glory and misery of my Hollywood \u2013 will I return to Serbia and why I support the students (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/dokovic-denied-100th-title-by-his-idols-student-mensik-19-overcomes-his-mentor-in-miami-final-video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">\u0110OKOVI\u0106 DENIED 100TH TITLE BY HIS IDOL\u2019S STUDENT: Men\u0161ik (19) Overcomes His Mentor in Miami Final! (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/they-are-already-preparing-a-welcome-members-of-the-european-parliament-want-to-host-students-who-are-coming-to-strasbourg-by-bicycle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">THEY ARE ALREADY PREPARING A WELCOME: Members of the European Parliament want to host students who are coming to Strasbourg by bicycle!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/proglasena-vanredna-situacija-u-banjaluci-vise-od-130-klizista-i-odrona-aktivirano-na-podrucju-grada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED IN BANJA LUKA: More than 130 landslides and rockslides activated in the city area!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong><strong>:<\/strong> Mozzarsport, <strong>Foto<\/strong>: Guliver\/AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems even Nikola Joki\u0107 has had enough. It\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve seen the Serbian center this frustrated, as he was against Golden State. There&#8217;s frequent talk that he often has to go it alone \u2014 and that was absolutely the case again on Friday night. He gave it his all against [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2169,"featured_media":174690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2097,5961,249,250,5962,2435],"class_list":["post-174689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-denver-nagetsi","tag-golden-stejt-voriorsi","tag-kosarka-2","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-stiv-ker","tag-zapadna-konferencija","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Serbiantimes.info EN","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174713,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174689\/revisions\/174713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}