INDIANAPOLIS — Nikola Jokic is still fighting one battle with the referees every night.
He has vowed not to waste his energy arguing with them anymore, but he just can’t resist an opportunity to take advantage of rulebook minutiae. And so he forges onward in the fight for one single continuation call.
“Eventually,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said, “maybe he’ll get that call.”
He’s been spurned by the refs in multiple cities this week already. Detecting a defender’s hand where it’s not supposed to be, he exploits its compromised position by drawing contact with a rip-through into his shooting form, or some rushed version of it. As he hears the whistle, Jokic follows through with the shot, hoping to earn three free throws.
Alas, it’s Jokic’s least successful move in an otherwise superb face-up game. Invariably, the nearest official will blow the whistle but emphatically wave off the shot, pointing to the ground instead. The foul is on the floor. Jokic gets his call, but not the way he wants it.
“I think they call a foul because I’m in my shooting motion,” he said Wednesday night after a 135-120 win over the Pacers. “If I’m not in my shooting motion, they would not call the foul. So the reason why it’s a foul is because I’m shooting the ball. I’m in a shooting motion. And then they say it’s not a shooting motion. So it’s just weird to me.”
His claim is simple: The act of lifting the ball from waist-level (or thereabouts) into a shooting position is part of his shooting motion, according to the concept of continuation. If he draws contact by making that motion, then logically, Jokic posits, it should be either a shooting foul or no foul at all.
The refs seemingly never see it that way, as hard as Jokic tries.
Until they do, this will be his mission.
“I mean, I cannot change the call,” he said when asked if he has engaged them in conversations about it.
He did express visible disdain for one particular call on Monday, when he improbably banked in the awkward 3-point attempt after the whistle. What the Nuggets center hoped would be a 4-point play opportunity was instead ruled side-out to Denver. Foul on the floor.
“I just don’t understand, I guess,” Adelman said Wednesday after Jokic failed again to earn the shooting foul. “There are certain guys in the league that kick their foot up when they shoot, and they do it every time, so they’re allowed to do that. And they don’t call it an offensive foul, or they say that someone went through their body because that’s their natural shooting motion. If he takes the ball through his natural shooting motion up to the top of his pocket, I guess I’m just looking for an answer that makes sense with the same comparisons to all the other players in the league.”
Continuation has long been an area of discussion and scrutiny throughout the sport, the idea being that players who get fouled while preparing to shoot are allowed to finish their shooting motion and receive the benefit of a shooting foul. It usually applies when a player drives to the basket.
But Jokic has made a point to intentionally go into a shooting motion anywhere on the court if he expects or senses a foul. It’s one way to attempt to counter defenses that purposefully foul with a three-point lead at the end of games. The defense’s goal in that situation is to put the offense on the free-throw line for only two tries, not enough to tie the game. Anticipating it and launching a heave as the foul occurs, theoretically, should be worthy of a shooting foul and three free throws.
Jokic hasn’t had any luck getting the call on a full-court shot, either. But the topic at hand recently has been entirely within the context of Denver’s half-court offense — a more natural setting to suddenly go into a 3-point shooting motion.
Jokic and Adelman believe it’s reasonable to expect the call to be a shooting foul, at least every once in a while.
“There’s definitely times, I agree, where he thinks he did (go into a shooting motion) but I don’t know where he starts with the ball, if that makes sense,” Adelman said. “But if the ball starts and goes straight up to his pocket, he doesn’t divert his path, he shoots the ball the way he shoots the ball, it’s a talking point. Obviously, the officials are great at communicating throughout the game. They give you their opinions. But yeah, you know Nikola. He’s always trying to learn the next thing in this game.”
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