When the boos rained down on Nikola Jokic, his face went red with angry determination and his Nuggets stuck it to their fans — by sending them home happy, ironically. When the awkward silence of a neutered crowd surrounded him two nights later, a 20-point deficit stayed dormant.
The Nuggets might’ve given their fans more reason to boo with a 134-114 home loss to Golden State on Monday night. But Denver decided to zip it, mostly obliging the wishes of its superstar, who, after all, is not under contract beyond this season despite his promises.
Jokic doubled down on his anti-booing stance after the rout. He even took it a step further: Fans who boo their own team, in his words, “are not real fans.”
The Serbian center has made numerous past comments expressing a sort of fondness for how ruthless European basketball fans are. As recently as this preseason, he said: “I wish every player in NBA should go play, like, six months in Europe just to see how (much) pressure it is to play.”
In an exchange with The Denver Post on Monday, he was asked about that sentiment in relation to his condemnation of the Ball Arena boos.
“I just said what I said,” Jokic answered. “It’s not something that — I’m sticking to what I said. I played in a much worse environment in (Europe). I played in front of 10 people, 50 people, 100 people, 150,000 people, whatever. I didn’t play in front of 150,000 people. Like, 10,000, 15,000. And I’m not used to the fans booing their own team.”
So is the difference, in his experience, that European fans direct their vitriol entirely at the opponent, and never at the home team?
“I’ve never heard (of fans doing) that,” Jokic repeated. “I mean, probably, they are. But I think they are not real fans.”
The Nuggets’ relationship with their fans is off to a rocky start this season. They’ve fallen behind by 20 or more points in both of their home games — both against winless opponents. Without the 23-point comeback last Saturday that sparked Jokic’s original comments, they would be 0-3.
Denver was ranked 25th in net rating, 18th in offensive rating, 26th in defensive rating and 23rd in defensive rebounding rate after Monday’s loss. The defense is allowing 41.7 attempted 3-pointers per game, ranking 28th.
And 52.7 points in the paint per game, ranking 21st.
And 18.7 second-chance points per game, also 21st.
“I’m not surprised,” Jokic said. “I think last year, we were (ranked) 20-something in defense. It cannot happen overnight. … It’s kind of hard to change your habits. You really need to emphasize and kind of overdo. Some situations, even if you don’t need to do it, you need to do it, just to change your habits. It’s a hard thing to do.”
It doesn’t help that Denver’s offense hasn’t functioned at its usual dominant level yet, either. Perimeter shooting has suffered from the absences of Cam Johnson, Spencer Jones and Julian Strawther. The Nuggets are 31.1% from deep after three games, including a 5-for-23 clip from Jokic that coach David Adelman said isn’t a concern to him.
As the Warriors buried Denver in the fourth quarter, fans beelined for the exits instead of holding their breath that Jokic would make good on his promise from 48 hours earlier: “If you guys follow us, you know that we never quit.” It was the basis of his frustration at being jeered.
Nuggets power forward Aaron Gordon offered a different perspective on Saturday. He would rather hear booing than silence. Adelman also weighed in on the reactions Monday.
“I think it’s individual to each person. That’s why Aaron’s reaction is different than Nikola’s,” he said. “All the reactions are personal to the locker room, so I’m not gonna speak on that, but I can see it both ways. I see Nikola’s point that it’s the first game of the season. He’s been here for a long time. And I think we’ve won the most home games (in the league) in the last 10 years. So it was an awful start, for sure. But we’ve had awful starts and come back and won games, and we did it that night as well. … For me personally, I heard it, but I was more concerned about trying to find a rotation to play to try to win us a game. For me emotionally and the staff, that wasn’t a conversation, and it hasn’t been since.”
Jokic wasn’t alone in his frustration. Multiple team sources have told The Denver Post that they felt like a home opener was too soon for fans to boo a new version of the team. Players were largely taken aback by the reception.
Adelman, however, said he didn’t think it had a motivational effect on them during the comeback against New Orleans.
“I think after the game, there’s a response to it, like I said, in different ways for different people,” he said. “It was kind of brought to my attention after the fact and after (Jokic’s) quote, all those things. But like I said, I think he’s earned the right to have an opinion. He’s had a lot of success here. And the big thing for me is the fans have been here for all this time. … They’ve been here for (lots of winning). The fans and players, it’s communal. They feed off of each other. And just thinking back on all these environments that I’ve been lucky enough to be part of in this building, it’s just, let’s not forget that. … This is a special group of players that have played for these fans and this city. So I think those things are connected, and they have to stay connected.”