SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Three Denver Nuggets were rapt with attention as a mastermind scribbled on the whiteboard, demonstrably explaining plays for the team huddle.
No, not interim head coach David Adelman. Nikola Jokic was taking his turn with the dry-erase marker.
“Whenever I see something,” Jokic said, “I’m gonna say it.”
“We were trying to give them a little more leeway to let them communicate and talk first,” Adelman said after a 124-116 win over the Kings. “Now, that doesn’t always go well. But it did tonight.”
Jokic, the face of the Nuggets and the consensus best player in the NBA, was hoarse by the time he said this in a postgame ESPN interview: “People say that we are vulnerable, but the beast is always the strongest or the most dangerous when they’re vulnerable.