Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards has praised Nikola Jokic after his latest performance.
Jokic was one of the stars for the Denver Nuggets in their NBA Western Conference Finals Game Three win over the Los Angeles Lakers. The Nuggets won 119-108 to go 3-0 up in the series, needing just one more win to reach the NBA Finals.
The Serbian scored 24 points with six rebounds and eight assists to help put the Nuggets on the brink of reaching their first ever NBA Finals. Jamal Murray continued his impressive form with 37 points, seven rebounds and six assists to his name.
Jokic has been one of the stars of the NBA Playoffs this year, so it should come as no surprise to anyone to see him receiving praise from all corners. The latest comes from a fellow NBA player in Edwards.
On his Instagram story, Edwards posted a video of Jokic from the Game Three win over the Lakers scoring a three-pointer from behind the arc, before running away to celebrate. Edwards caption the video by writing: “Talk that s*** Jokic,” followed by two sleeping face emojis.
The meaning behind the caption seems to be a way of praise towards Jokic, encouraging him to continue with his good form following his recent performances. Jokic was up for the NBA’s MVP award, but missed out with that honour going to Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid.
Some of the more recent praise towards Jokic has come from Nuggets head coach Michael Malone. The coach even admitted that, in the latter stages of the Game Three win over the Lakers, Jokic took on extra responsibility by providing play calls for his team-mates.
“Him and Jamal were playing [a] two-man game and I have to give credit where credit is due, that was Nikola's call,” Malone told reporters in a press conference, about Jokic.
“He said on the bench ‘let's go to this play, let me and Jamal play [the] whole side of the floor and we'll make the right reads’ and we milked that down the stretch. So Coach Jokic did a great job tonight.”
This remark from Malone was later put to Jokic when he addressed the media after the win against the Lakers. However, the idea of being a coach is not something that seems to interest the 28-year-old at the moment.
When Malone’s remarks were put to him, Jokic replied: “I don't know. I don't want to be a coach... that's the worst job on the planet for sure.”
Should the Nuggets claim a series win over the Lakers, then they would progress to next month’s NBA Finals. Were that to happen they would face either the Miami Heat or the Boston Celtics, with the Heat holding a 2-0 series lead ahead of Game Three.
