With the Denver Nuggets up 111-94 over the Miami Heat last night, most Nuggets fans were prepping to leave the arena. With less than three minutes left in the game and Denver up 17 points on one of the best teams in the league, the game was well in-hand. Nikola Jokic was making his way up the court after blocking and rebounding a Bam Adebayo miss at the rim.
What should have been a ho-hum 2:45 remaining on the clock that could have been predicted by every sportsbook and Kubet took a unexpected turn into chaos. As you may have seen scrolling social media last night, Jokic charged the Heat’s Markieff Morris from behind during a dead ball; lowering his shoulder and bulling into Morris. The impact of the 6’11, 284 pound Serbian center putting his weight into your back knocked 6’8 Morris tumbling onto the ground.
Why did Nikola Jokic hit Markieff Morris?
When I first came across clips of Jokic charging Morris, many of the clips didn’t show what Morris did to anger Jokic that happened two seconds immediately before. And most all videos didn’t show the play that precipated the hit. Here’s a clip of what caused Jokic to become so enraged as to go after Morris (second slide).
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As you can see from the video above, you can see that Markieff Morris ran across the court with intention and momentum to intentionally foul Jokic. The problem isn’t that Markieff clearly wanted to foul Jokic. That’s fine, the problem is how hard the foul was and the impact happened as Jokic jumped off the ground; the momentum could have knocked the defending MVP off balance in a way that may have caused injury.
It only doesn’t look bad because Jokic is a reeeeally big guy. Thankfully, Jokic’s big body was able to absord the hit, gather himself and land on both feet as Morris casually walked away. Jokic clearly wasn’t going to let that happen.
Support for Jokic, Morris deserved it
With all that video context and evidence in hand, the internet reception widely supported Jokic in his actions; calling out Morris (and his twin brother Marcus) as dudes that have a reputation of fouling unnecessarily hard, attempting to intimidate and just playing dirty for many years. Here’s a sampling of some of the most-liked comments on Instagram
I mean…… Morris did start it 🤷🏽♀️👀
Morris got a taste of his own sh*t lolll
morris finally gets what he deserves
lol wtf was morris doing?😭💀
Love this from Jokic, Morris asks for this
Honestly… Chose the wrong kid on the playground. Horrible awareness by Morris
Morris started it. He got what he deserved
We don’t know what the main sentiment was in reaction to the exchange, but reading several comments, it certainly seems as if the overall feeling was somewhere around “Jokic was more than justified in retaliating against Morris because Markieff started it with an unnecessary hard foul” with many others voicing that the “Morris brothers are always insitgating cheap shots” …except with more colorful words.
Both Jokic and Morris were ejected for exchanging hard fouls. Morris was hurt and after laying on the floor for some time, Sportscenter reported that Morris was able to walk back to the locker room.
After the game, Jokic was reflective and apologetic saying “It’s a stupid play. I feel bad. I’m not supposed to react that way… probably if I didn’t react in that way, it wouldn’t have been [called] a flagrant foul.”
Personally, it’s good to see Jokic express regret. That’s what adults do. That said, we also think Jokic was justified. When you’re hit like that, it’s a natural reaction to defend yourself and show your frustrated at the party that wronged you. On top of all that, we won’t see any regret from Morris. Or his brother.
Waited till bro turned his back smh. NOTED ✍🏾
— Marcus Morris (@MookMorris2) November 9, 2021
So Marcus Morris is the moral compass of integrity? Give us a break.
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