After missing around a month of NBA action, Nikola Jokic returned to the court on January 30th against the Los Angeles Clippers, and he looked a hundred percent like his old self. The only problem was that he didn\u2019t play as long as he normally would, and that irked Charles Barkley.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets won 122-109 against the Clippers, and Jokic scored 31 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. It was business as usual for the Joker, whose return will only bolster the Denver Nuggets\u2019 post-season hopes. The crowd and pundits seemed to miss seeing Jokic\u2019s greatness on display, which is why Barkley<\/a> bizarrely called for David Adelman\u2019s head for limiting the Serbian\u2019s minutes.<\/p>\n Jokic<\/a>\u2018s incredible stat line was a result of just 25 minutes of basketball action. Barkley feels \u2014 and rightly so \u2014 that he could have done a lot more. The punishment for Adelman? Fire him.<\/p>\n \u201cI gotta call out coach Adelman,\u201d Barkley said on ESPN. \u201cHe gave this guy 25 minutes; he would have had 40\u2026 We gotta get rid of coach Adelman. He holding this dude back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis dude should have had 40-15-7\u2026 He can\u2019t even get his triple-double on cuz he played half the game,\u201d\u00a0the Round Mound of Rebounds added<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, he was joking. No coach would be fired simply for restricting their star player\u2019s minutes, especially after returning from a long-term injury. Jokic missed 16 games with a knee injury he suffered on December 29. Now, he is back and will slowly, but surely, play more minutes to satisfy Barkley and others.<\/p>\n The Nuggets looked fine without Jokic as well, which makes them an even scarier team. They went 10-6 in his absence, establishing themselves as a genuine contender in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Jokic\u2019s second game back was not as impressive. He scored just 16 points, grabbed seven rebounds, and recorded eight assists in a 121\u2013111 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the top team in the NBA. He played four more minutes than he did against the Clippers, which once again shows that Adelman<\/a> does not want to risk losing his best player to injury again this season.<\/p>\n By the time the playoffs arrive, however, Jokic should be ready to perform at his best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After missing around a month of NBA action, Nikola Jokic returned to the court on January 30th against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,2001,559,250,187,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-576740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charles-barkley","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-david-adelman","12":"tag-denver-nuggets","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-clippers","15":"tag-laclippers","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangelesclippers","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-nikola-jokic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115999628662450916","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}