Nikola Jokic Is Back To Taunting Defenses With Absurd Passes

Nikola Jokic has gotten his groove back since his horrendous one-shot game against the Memphis Grizzlies last week. But since his recent high-scoring outputs haven’t yielded wins for Denver, he tried his next best strategy against Atlanta: embarrassing teams with mind-bending passes. The Hawks certainly tried their best to limit the damage by going with the “play some defense” strategy, but ultimately gave up on that plan when it wasn’t working out for them.

The Serbian center’s standout play came in the second quarter when he faked a shot and used his follow-through motion to get the ball to Paul Millsap, who was cutting to the basket.

That sort of trick play is especially mean because for a brief moment, Miles Plumlee probably thought he did enough to affect the trajectory of Jokic’s shot. But after a quick swivel of the head, Plumlee immediately realized how wrong his assumption was. Minutes later, Jokic got another pass on the highlight reel with a casual half-nutmeg to Gary Harris who got the easy layup.

If there was a time for Jokic to bring back the impressive passing game, it was certainly tonight. The Nuggets’ 138-93 win snapped a four-game losing streak that brought the team’s early-season hype train to a screeching halt. If Jokic keep breaking out highlights like this, things will likely return to chugging along smoothly.