The former center of Partizan, and now the player of the Phoenix Suns, Jock Landale, admitted that during the entire series between the Suns and the Nuggets, he had only one thing in mind. To beat Jokić!
Denver Nuggets grind in NBA playoffs, and how could they not when they have the best basketball player in the world. Although he was not named player of the year in NBA league, Nikola Jokić proved what a force he is in the playoffs, and he felt it on his own skin Jock Lendale.
The former Partizan center is now Deandra Ayton’s backup in Phoenix, and against Ayton, Bijomb and him, Jokić did whatever he wanted. He averaged 34.5 points, 13.2 rebounds and 10.3 assists in six matches, and in the fourth match he scored 53 points. Although his guards seemed to be doing everything right…
“I do everything right, I chase him around the field, when he gets the ball I’m perfectly positioned, I follow him… And then he just turns his shoulder and hits with his right hand out of step! And I couldn’t have played better defense. I literally did everything, everything possible to take the ball away from him. I was beating him along the way, actually I was doing it the entire series“Landale admitted.
In fact, he did not refrain from admitting how much he actually beat the Serbian center during all six matches that he guarded him. We can see that from Nikola Jokić’s red hands after the matches…
“I was hitting him all the time. That was the plan, the idea was to run after him down the court and beat him as much as possible. I think my offensive rebound dropped drastically because I wasn’t even looking at the ball, I was just trying to run through him to I exhaust him“, continued Lendale.
He pointed out that he couldn’t believe it when he saw some passes that were distributed by the player he was guarding. It’s just that no one understands where those balls are going.
“There was that dog. He got the ball at the top, I keep my hand on his chest, I look over my left shoulder to see who’s where, I look back at him and I just see the hand in front of me. I turn again, Kentavius Caldwell-Pope points. I’m like, ‘How the hell did he throw the ball there, it doesn’t make any sense.’ I’m not going to lie, it was a lot.”
When Jokic started putting up incredible numbers, everyone blamed Lendale for it. But who’s to blame now, when he’s doing the same thing to Anthony Davis?
“It started to frustrate me when he started putting up monster numbers. I was guarding him well, keeping him under 50 percent shooting. But everyone was saying, ‘Well, of course she’s going to do that to that bum Jock Landale. Who the hell is that guy?’ Well, don’t you see? Can’t you see how hard I make him work? Then the Lakers fans jumped in, like, we’re not going to have those problems because Anthony Davis is 10 times a better player than Jock. In some respects it probably is. But I made it work. Then you just realize that you won’t be able to stop him. It simply cannot be done. And no one else can, I don’t really care what anyone says. There are players who may sometimes play above his level, but they will definitely fall. He never. He is always on top. There is never a bad match. It’s fast. Vertically, he is not an athlete like others. But his ability to choose corners and get to them quickly, the way he uses his upper body to turn people around, nobody has that,” concluded the former Partizan center.