Brooklyn Nets: 3 takeaways from a sweeping win over Nuggets

1. Defense did enough with Jokic

How good is Denver Nuggets’ All-Star center Nikola Jokic? He put up a triple-double against the Brooklyn Nets Wednesday, scoring 25 points with 14 rebounds and 10 assists … and the Nets came away feeling they had limited the damage.

When the teams met in Denver on Nov. 9, Jokic nearly carried the Nuggets to a victory by himself with 37 points and 21 rebounds, going 14-for-22 from the floor and 8-of-10 at the line.

Denver played much of the night with two bigs on the floor, with both Jokic and Mason Plumlee starting, and Brooklyn coach Kenny Atkinson opted to go small against Jokic.

Jarrett Allen drew the assignment on Plumlee, whihc 6-foot-5 power forward Treveon Graham took on Jokic. Later in the game, 6-foot-7 Rondae Hollis-Jefferson did battle with the 7-foot, 250-pound behemoth with the inside game of a center and the floor game of a point guard.

Jokic got numbers, but he had to work for them. He still got to the line 10 times, making eight, but the Nets limited him to 13 shots. There aren’t a lot of teams that wouldn’t take their chances with making the other Nuggets shoot 86 times while limiting the Joker to 13.

Graham and Hollis-Jefferson combined to pick up nine fouls, five by Graham, but their quickness also bothered Jokic, who turned the ball over twice. Yet the pair also managed to body up against Jokic well enough that he was forced to kick the ball out when he couldn’t get to his spots down low.

It wasn’t always pretty, but the Nets prevented Jokic from taking over the game and as well as he’s played this season, that’s about the best you can hope for most nights.

Where the move paid off the most was by freeing up Allen and backup center Ed Davis to stay in the paint with Plumlee, who’s not a threat to score from outside of about five feet, and provide help at the rim.

In the last matchup, Allen had four blocks, but the Nets were vulnerable inside when Jokic pulled him out to the perimeter. That didn’t happen on Wednesday and Denver struggled at times to figure out what to do.