Earlier this week, the Denver Nuggets improved to 9-2 with a comfortable road win over the Los Angeles Clippers. The big storyline coming out of that game was the play of Nikola Jokic, who scored a whopping 55 points, including 25 in the first quarter alone, in the victory.
Recently, former NBA big man Kendrick Perkins took to the “Road Trippin'” podcast to describe just how amazed he is by what Jokic is doing.
“I watched Hakeem Olajuwon on his great nights put up triple doubles. Jokic is doing that on regular nights. So his best nights look like a night we saw last night. He is the best center that I’ve seen in the last 20 years. I don’t understand it, he’s not the most athletic. It’s pure skills,” said Perkins.
“He’s shooting 78% from the field. It’s unreal what we’re watching right now. I already believe that he’s the most skilled center to ever play the game of basketball, but the fact that he came in and he took it, because this was personal as f—k against Zubac, that’s why he went out and put up those numbers,” he concluded.
Indeed, Ivica Zubac has long been viewed by many as one of the best “Jokic stoppers” in the league due to his size and defensive prowess, and Jokic sure seemed to take Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue's lack of double teams personally on Wednesday.
A hot start for the Nuggets
As previously mentioned, the Nuggets now sit at 9-2, good for second in the Western Conference, thanks in large part to the continued dominance of Jokic.
Meanwhile, new teammates Cam Johnson and Tim Hardaway Jr. are starting to look more comfortable in their Denver threads, and the Nuggets seem to be the only team out West that has a legitimate chance of challenging the Oklahoma City Thunder for conference supremacy.
The Nuggets will next take the floor on Saturday evening for a road game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
