![]() ![]() "So you do like this to him," James said postgame, taking the cap off his head and tipping it. James was draped all over Jokic when the center swished a bailout 26-foot stepback fadeaway in the second quarter of Game 4. "Even when you guard him for one of the best possessions that you think you can guard him," Lakers superstar forward LeBron James said, "he puts the ball behind his head Larry Bird-style and shoots it 50 feet in the air and it goes in, like he did four or five times this series." Jokic's ability to make unorthodox look easy was on full display in the West finals, when the two-time MVP splashed a series of incredibly difficult shots just before the shot-clock or end-of-quarter buzzer while the Nuggets swept the Lakers. "And he's showing that right now on this stage." He's amazing, one of the best players in the world," Nowitzki said. Those types of shots, often delivered after the defense appears to have taken away all the decent options for Jokic, tend to deflate entire arenas while delivering staggering blows to even the best players in the league. The "Sombor Sling" - the nickname Nuggets coach Michael Malone and some local media members coined to describe the unforgettable bucket against the Lakers - plays off of the "Sombor Shuffle," Jokic's signature move that is often compared to Nowitzki's fade. "He can put the release point all the way behind his head and then shoot it super high in the air with unbelievable mark." " got a knack for making tough shots, so I was not really surprised that he ended up making that," Nowitzki told ESPN. Traveling internationally with family, Nowitzki has limited his recent viewing of the playoffs to catching highlights the next morning. ![]() Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks' legend, Hall of Fame Class of 2023 member and godfather of the one-legged fadeaway, wasn't watching live as the Nuggets punched their ticket on May 22 to the franchise's first NBA Finals. With the shot clock running down, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic spun to his left, took two dribbles, stepped behind the 3-point line with his left foot while twisting his body to face the basket, cocked the ball behind his head and released a high-arching, one-legged fadeaway just over the outstretched 7-foot-6 wingspan of Los Angeles Lakers star big man Anthony Davis.ĮSPN play-by-play commentator Mike Breen shouted a few seconds later, his trademark call punctuating Jokic's clutch shot in the Western Conference finals closeout game that left the Lakers players, fans inside Arena and a TV audience of millions shocked because of its high degree of difficulty.ĭirk Nowitzki, however, was not surprised. NBA Finals 2023: What Dirk Nowitzki sees in Nikola Jokic's 'Sombor Shuffle' To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. ![]() If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. ![]()
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