Nuggets-Thunder Game 5 3-pointers: Nikola Jokic found his legs. Will he ever find a whistle?

Instant reaction from the Nuggets - loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Challenge of their second-round NBA Playoffs series Will Jokic ever get a big call Fadeaway -pointer It s back Tips to self Also back On the plus side Nikola Jokic exposed his legs again If only he could find a whistle With six minutes left in a tie battle the Joker had taken shots and had gone to the line once And that one foul shot came with to go in the first quarter OKC star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shows fouls to bureaucrats all the time So Jokic did the same with Jaylin Williams draped all over him with left in the third quarter As Williams clung to him the way a remora fish clings to the belly of a shark the refs looked at the carnage and directly whistled Joker for a ticky-tack offensive foul If the zebras were trying to send a message in this meeting it must ve been in Esperanto SGA s weakness A - zone Who knew Shai Gilgeous-Alexander s Kryptonite was a - zone Nuggets interim coach David Adleman did apparently Somewhere ex-Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim had to be proud as the Nuggets used a popular and basic collegiate defense to render the best scorer in the NBA thoroughly helpless on his home floor While OKC fans looked on in stunned silence SGA looked as if he d never seen a zone before perplexed by Denver s looks while forcing shot after shot The presumptive - MVP put up a first-half stat line to forget -of- shooting for on treys points at the break Even better the Nuggets won the early non-Joker minutes of the second quarter outscoring the hosts - without the Big Honey on the floor Rallying from the inside Props to Adelman and his staff for a well-timed um timeout early on The Thunder had raced out to a - lead the Paycom Center was rocking again and you worried that this might turn into Meeting Part II But a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion the Nuggets re-dedicated themselves to going inside to get buckets And it worked Denver made five straight shots inside the paint turning a -point early deficit into a - lead The Nuggets who d struggled to get looks down low in Games - led OKC in points in the paint - midway through the opening stanza Context Denver managed points in the paint for the entire afternoon in Championship and over the whole contest in Championship