The best player of the Denver Nuggets, Nikola Jokic, is nearly always included on historical NBA rankings due to his incredible play. However, after yet another subpar shooting performance against the Houston Rockets, the reigning MVP of the Finals found himself on a negative list.
Shooting just 31.0% from the field over his last two games, Jokic joined George Mikan as the only other center in NBA history to shoot that poorly over a two-game stretch (minimum 55 field goal attempts):
Usually historically efficient, Jokic has been historically inefficient the last two games, shooting 9/32 against the LA Clippers before shooting 9/26 against the Rockets. It’s worth noting that the minimum 55 field goal attempts for this criteria does limit the qualifiers, since that’s a high volume of shots over a two-game stretch, but this stat does put into perspective just how uncharacteristically bad Jokic has been from the field the last two games.
Per Basketball Reference’s StatHead, which was cited by StatMamba on X, there have been 686 instances of a center attempting at least 55 field goal attempts across a two-game span. As previously stated, Jokic’s 31.0% clip in those two games is the 5th worst ever, and worst by any player not named George Mikan.
Denver has dropped these two poor shooting games from Jokic, falling 111-102 to the Clippers, and 114-106 to the Rockets. Still in decent shape overall at 14-9, Denver has fallen a bit from where they’re used to sitting near the top of the Western Conference. Currently four games back of first place, the Nuggets are tied with the Lakers at 14-9 for the 4th seed, and sit just a few percentage points behind the 13-8 Mavericks for the 3rd seed.