It’s no secret that Nikola Jokic has a pretty in-depth understanding of the game of basketball. Few players in history, and let alone those at his position, have shared his ability to understand what’s going on around him, locate where there is an open man – or where he could lead an open man – and execute the pass.

That’s been the case for years, with Jokic averaging at least 9.7 assists per game for the last eight seasons of his nine-year career. Over the past three years, however, he’s taken it to another level entirely, with two MVP wins and a close-run second-place behind Joel Embiid the result.

That improvement hasn’t escaped anyone, least of all Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone. In the lead-up to their Western Conference Finals matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, he said of his superstar center: “The game was always moving pretty slowly for him, but it’s moving slower now.”

Those comments came in response to how Jokic has improved since the 2020 playoffs, when the Nuggets lost at the same stage of the playoffs to LeBron James and the Lakers. Jokic put up solid numbers in that series but failed to have the impact of which he is capable, averaging a tick under 22 points, 7.2 rebounds and only 5.0 assists.

That would be a pretty good series for most centers in history, but Jokic is not most centers. In his 11 playoff games so far this postseason, the Serbian is averaging 30.7 points on 54.9% shooting, 12.8 rebounds and 9.7 assists. With the Lakers playing as well as they are, he will need to do a lot more than he did the last time these two sides met in the playoffs, but as Michael Malone alluded to in his recent comments, this version of Nikola Jokic is very different to the one the Lakers faced three years ago.