![\"Nikola](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775953105_127_GettyImages-2266561148-e1773612831453.jpg\")
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Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets reacts to a foul during the second half of a game against the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n
Denver Nuggets<\/a> fans watched with mixed emotions as star big man Nikola Jokic<\/a> sat on the bench in street clothes Friday night.<\/p>\n Jokic was held out of the Denver Nuggets\u2019 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder\u2019s junior-varsity team. The Nuggets also played without all their starters.<\/p>\n While the Thunder sidelined their top players because they no longer have anything to play for before the playoffs \u2014 Oklahoma City clinched the top seed in the NBA in Wednesday\u2019s win over the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> \u2014 the Nuggets were interestingly OK with losing Friday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n GettyDavid Adelman is the head coach of the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n Beyond that, Denver further risked Jokic\u2019s ability to obtain postseason awards eligibility. Because of the injury Jokic incurred earlier this season, he still hasn\u2019t met the 65-game threshold.\u00a0<\/p>\n There is only one game in the season, and if Jokic doesn\u2019t play in the finale, he\u2019ll officially concede consideration for any postseason honor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nuggets Announce Nikola Jokic\u2019s Playing Status for Sunday<\/p>\n Jokic is having another fantastic season. While he most likely won\u2019t win NBA MVP, he has played like one for much of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 31-year-old Denver star is averaging 27.8 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.9 assists per game, making him the only player this season to average a triple double. He has already clinched that average for the season and has done it for the second time in his career. Russell Westbrook<\/a> and Oscar Robertson are the only others to pull it off.\u00a0<\/p>\n Case in point: Jokic is a superstar and absolutely must at least make himself eligible to be recognized as one this season. If he falls short of the games played threshold, it will forever go down as one of the major outlier seasons in NBA history.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brace yourselves, Nuggets fans, there is a real chance Jokic won\u2019t play tomorrow. Go ahead and take a second to read that again if you\u2019d like.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the official injury report released today, Jokic is listed as questionable for tomorrow\u2019s clash with the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Strategy Denver Can Use<\/p>\n Of course, being questionable doesn\u2019t mean being unavailable. It\u2019s a 50\/50 thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Had Jokic already been eligible for postseason awards, he would\u2019ve sat out tomorrow\u2019s game without a problem. But that\u2019s why this is a problem.<\/p>\n Ahead of Denver\u2019s matchup with Oklahoma City, head coach David Adelman said the playing status of Jokic for Sunday will be decided after discussions between ownership, the front office and Jokic.<\/p>\n An approach Jokic and the Nuggets could take is to only play the star big man 20 minutes and immediately pull him from the game. That way, he\u2019ll meet the 65-game threshold, all but guaranteeing his spot on the All-NBA team.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a safe ground between wanting to rest him to avoid potential for injury and getting Jokic to satisfy the 65-game rule.<\/p>\n Jokic\u2019s final status likely won\u2019t be announced until very close to the start of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tomorrow evening at Ball Arena.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tAdel Ahmad<\/a> Adel is a writer with over five years of experience covering the NBA. His work has appeared on various media platforms, both national and local. More about Adel Ahmad<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Nuggets\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets reacts to a foul during the second half of a game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-708547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116388870380099247","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708547","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=708547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775953108_522_Copy-of-1920-2026-03-30T221717.810.png\")
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