Welcome in to the Denver Nuggets Weekend Moment, a quick look back at a special moment in Nuggets history that has some sort of connection to current Nuggets events. The all star break is right on the horizon but first the Nuggets have a game in Milwaukee against the Bucks before finishing out the unofficial first half of the season at home with a contest against the Sacramento Kings. With the Nuggets headed to Milwaukee it got me thinking of significant moment’s in Nuggets history that had to do with the Bucks. There aren’t very many as a result of the fact that the teams are in separate conferences and therefore only play each other twice a season and can’t meet in the playoffs save for the NBA Finals. Perhaps, with the quality of both franchises’ current rosters, there will be some more memorable moments in an NBA Finals in the near future. For now though there’s not a ton of significant history between the two teams.
There is however a very significant and special moment in Nuggets lore that happened against the Bucks, and that is Nikola Jokic’s very first triple double. It happened seven years and one week ago in Denver during Nikola’s sophomore season. He had been flirting with the triple double for a bit. This is also the year of December 15th so Jokic was just about two months into becoming the full time starter for Denver. He was in fact close to getting it in the last game he played prior to the Milwaukee one. Nikola tallied twenty-nine points, fourteen rebounds and eight assists against the Phoenix Suns but went down late in the fourth quarter with a hip strain (one of, if not, the scariest injury moments of Jokic’s incredibly healthy career) and missed the next three games. He also was two assists shy earlier in January when the Nuggets played the Indiana Pacers in London and just four days after he was inserted into the starting lineup he had the biggest performance of his career to that point with a 27/17/9 game against the Dallas Mavericks. It all finally came together that early February night in Denver though.
The Nuggets were obviously transitioning into the Jokic era (this was even when they were rocking those weird transition from sky blue to navy blue uniforms) so their roster was a weird mashup of remnants from the 2013 fifty-seven win squad and typical rebuilding team players (cheap vets and rookie contracts). Joker’s fellow starters that night were Kenneth Faried, Wilson Chandler, Gary Harris and Jameer Nelson. Despite the funky roster, it was classic Jokic that night. He knocked down some threes and overall his offense was cooking (he even threw in a signature water polo rebound to layup) while he bodied John Henson on the glass all night. Assists were usually where Joker came up just short on getting the triple double but his passing that night was insane. He threw just about every pass in his arsenal: multiple crazy bounce passes to a cutting Harris, a no look kick out to Will Barton for a corner three, a full court touchdown to rookie Jamal Murray, an over the top perfectly placed touch pass to Chandler in the lane, a no look to Faried for a dunk. He capped it off by getting his tenth assist and the triple double on a one handed full court touchdown to Faried for a dunk and the crowd erupted. True to form, Joker wasn’t kept going and got another dime to Harris for a key bucket to help the Nuggets secure a late win. It was a special night in Denver and a much needed victory with the Nuggets in the middle of chasing what was then an elusive playoff bid.
