A week ago, Nikola Jokic authored one of his best highlights of the year while facing the New York Knicks. The two-time MVP caught the ball with Isaiah Hartenstein guarding him, Josh Hart as the help man, and Jalen Brunson on the weakside helping down on Aaron Gordon, with an eye on his man in the corner as well.
When Hart decided to step up to double Jokic, the big man didn’t even take a look before rifling a preposterous pass behind his head to Gordon, who laid it up for two against Brunson.
JOKER HAS EYES IN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD
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https://t.co/Thu9toUSIY pic.twitter.com/k4tMQWEXAa
— NBA (@NBA) March 22, 2024
The three Knicks that were guarding that play all got together this week on Hart and Brunson’s podcast, The Roommates Show, and when Hartenstein brought it up, the three proceeded to argue about how Jokic broke their defense on the play with Hart and Brunson taking turns trying to blame each other for the bucket before settling on Hart being a “dumbass” who let Jokic bait him.
Brunson, Hart and Hartenstein argue over how they defended one of Jokic’s best passes.
“He looked at me and baited the hell outta me.” pic.twitter.com/AqmcX3fwLL
— n i k o l a e s t h e t i c (@nikolaesthetic) March 28, 2024
It’s a great clip and shows how good the vibes are on the Knicks that they can have these kinds of back-and-forths in good fun, but it also shows what makes Jokic so hard to guard. The quickness with which he processes things that happen make it incredibly difficult to get him into actual trouble, because, as was the case here, he knows what he’ll do with the ball as soon as the defense makes a move. In this case, it was Hart getting baited into coming up from the block to double and before anyone (probably including Gordon) knew it, a pass was being thrown over his head to the basket.