The Nuggets were up 17 with less than 3 minutes against the Heat to go when all hell broke loose. Nikola Jokić started to take the ball up the court when Markieff Morris went for a professional foul to stop the possession. He gave Jokić a light body check, and the Serbian didn’t appreciate and retaliated.
Moris left the court visibly shaken up, and the first news is he was dealing with a neck injury. Jokić was ejected from the game and is looking at a suspension of at least a few games. As you can imagine, the Heat players didn’t react kindly to this shove from the back by the MVP. Jimmy Butler even tried to set up a “meeting” with Jokić in the back.
Interestingly enough, most of our fans in IG backed Jokić up, and their sentiment can be summed up with “what goes around comes around/he had it coming.” The Morris twins have a long reputation for dirty plays and cheap shots, and Jokić wasn’t having any of that tonight.
I have to say, Morris’ foul was dirty, and I’m not surprised someone eventually reacted. Still, going after a defenseless man from the back like that is not cool. I hope Markieff is not seriously injured, and we’ll see him on the court very soon.
Jokić has been suffering from a lack of respect from the refs for years now. Shaq talked about it several times. Because he is so big, a lot of apparent fouls weren’t called on him. So sometimes, as a big man, you have to let everyone know that stuff like that just won’t fly.
We now have another must-watch game on the schedule. Denver @ Miami, November 30th. See you there.