One of the most consistent ways to make Nikola Jokić’s MVP case the last three seasons was to point out how quickly the Nuggets fell apart whenever he sat on the bench.
Take the 2022-23 regular season, for example. Denver was 24.8 points per 100 possessions with Jokić on the court compared to on the sideline—the second straight season the team led the league in this ignominious category, per Cleaning the Glass. With Jokić on, the Nuggets had a 13.2 net rating. With Jokić off, that number slipped all the way to minus–11.6.
So when Joker picked up his fifth foul in the fourth quarter of Game 4 of the NBA Finals, the Heat looked primed for a comeback. Miami, which has seven wins this postseason after trailing by double digits, was losing 86–76 with a little over nine minutes to go when Jokić exited the game after picking up an offensive foul. The crowd was raucous. The stage was set for the Heat to go on a run, the same type of barrage that led them to victories in the first three rounds.
