Jimmy Butler Gives Honest Answer About Nikola Jokic's Defense

Jimmy Butler revealed an underrated part of Jokic's game.

Whenever Nikola Jokic's name is mentioned, people tend to only bring up his offensive game - the Sombor Shuffle, the triple-doubles, and hail mary buzzer beaters. People forget about the defensive side to his game, like the game-saving blocks he's had the past seasons. One person who doesn't forget though is Jimmy Butler.

Butler spoke about Jokic's underrated defense during a press conference today.

“As much as people look at what he does on the offensive end, he’s a hellified defender as well," Butler said.

Coming from Butler, it should mean a lot to illustrate just how good Nikola Jokic's defense actually is. For years, many have knocked the Denver Nugget for not being a good enough team defensively, even as far back as the 2020 bubble. Since then, Jokic has improved tremendously as a defender, and the team also added great defenders in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Aaron Gordon.

The Denver Nuggets have transformed from being a team that's not known for playing defense, to holding the Miami Heat to their lowest-scoring playoff game during the NBA Finals. Defense is a very contagious aspect of an NBA game, and Jokic improving as a defender certainly helps that top-down mentality for the entire Denver Nuggets team. 

Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat is at 8:00 pm ET on Sunday night.

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