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Having completed a remarkable comeback to knock off the Pelicans on Saturday night, Nikola Jokić shifted his attention toward his unexpected next opponent: Nuggets fans who had booed the team.
The superstar center heard the jeers of an unhappy, home crowd at Ball Arena, who witnessed the Nuggets getting stomped through the first half. After leading a rally that ended in a 141-135, overtime victory, Jokić used his postgame news conference to state that those disbelieving and venting fans are not welcome in the Denver arena.
“We get booed in the first home game,” Jokić told reporters after the Nuggets’ first victory of the season. “I think those fans who booed us, they don’t need to come anymore. Because if you guys follow us, you know that we never quit. And we came back from much worse or similar situations.
“If they ask me, they are not welcome anymore.”
The Nuggets had trailed, 45-26, in the second quarter when the boos began to rain down, according to the Denver Post. Coming off a season-opening defeat in Oklahoma City, the Nuggets dug a hole as great as 23 and were losing by 16 points at halftime against a New Orleans team that is not expected to be good.
Nuggets head coach David Adelman told reporters his team’s first-half effort was “dismal.”
“I didn’t expect our team to come out the way they did,” Adelman told reporters. “It was a horrendous first half for us. But I liked the fight back.”
Perhaps motivated and clearly angered by the boos, Jokić scored eight of his 35 points in overtime and added 15 rebounds and 10 assists for his 222nd triple-double of his regular-season and playoff career, passing Russell Westbrook for the most combined in NBA history. It was the 199th of Jokić’s regular season, second to Westbrook’s 209.
As Jokić made history and led the comeback, Nuggets fans cheered. Afterward, though, Jokić remembered the boos during an odd start to his 12th season with the team.