Which player is actually ‘best’ at guarding Nikola Jokic
For whatever reason before the WCF in 2023, there was a conception that Anthony Davis does very well against Nikola Jokic however that narrative has completely flipped.
I’ve seen Nurkic, Ayton, Draymond and Gobert mentioned before but the facts (stats) seem untrue.
While there might not be a Jokic stopper, is there an actual player that defends Jokic well to the point of keeping him to or below his averages?
Embiid is better at guarding Jokic than Jokic is Embiid (at least that seems clear in their limited matchups), but I don’t think either is great at it. I think Embiid could be but he’s always kinda worn down on the offensive end.
This hasn’t been true outside of 1 half last year. Go watch the first half of that matchup and tell me Embiid played better defense than Jokic.
I’ve only seen them play each other like twice, but both times I remember screaming at my TV that Jokic was getting eaten by Embiid and they should switch to trying to have Gordon guard Embiid and send help if he gets deep. Just seemed like Jokic was always a half step too slow for Embiid and they’d be better off asking Jokic to be a help defender.