Sports

Nikola Jokić Exacts Revenge By Trolling Timberwolves Rookie in Final Seconds of Game 5

By Stephen Douglas Sports Illustrated

The Nuggets beat the Timberwolves 125-113 in Game 5 on Monday night to stave off elimination. It was an especially sweet victory for Denver because it gave Nikola Jokić a chance to show Minnesota what it looks like when one player continues to try seconds after everyone else decides to coast to the finish line.

Trailing by 15 with 2:55 remaining in the fourth quarter the Timberwolves waved the white flag when they emptied the bench and removed Jaden McDaniels, Bones Hyland, Ayo Dosunmu, Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert from the game. Despite the fact that the game was no longer in doubt, Jokić remained on the court and even scored a basket against the reserves.

Then with just over 20 seconds left on the clock he struck. With the shot clock winding down Jokić seemed to hand the ball to Minnesota's Joan Beringer, a rookie out of France who was seeing the floor for just the second time in a postseason game.

Assuming Jokić was just trying to keep the clock running so the game would end, Beringer accepted the ball and was then taken by surprise when Jokić immediately tried to snatch it back away from him. Instead of the clock running out, it was stopped when a referee blew his whistle and the three-time MVP and No. 17 pick in the '25 draft had to line up at center court for a jump ball.

As you can see in this clip, Beringer was confused. And understandably so. He and the rest of his team had clearly stopped trying. When you consider what Jokić did and said after McDaniels shot a layup in the final seconds in Game 4, it's borderline shocking to see such childish behavior from any player on the Nuggets. This was a team that respected the unwritten rules just 48 hours earlier.

"I didn't like what McDaniels did," Nuggests coach David Adelman said after Game 4. "The game is over. The game was conceded both ways. In 2026, that stuff just doesn't happen anymore."

"Everybody stopped playing," Jokić had told the press on Sunday after nearly starting a brawl confronting McDaniels.

Asked about the jump ball situation in his press conference following Game 5, Jokić simply said "next question."

Perhaps Jokić didn't think he needed to address the play because he's made his feelings clear about trying to take the ball from opponents who aren't paying attention for quite some time. One of his patented moves is to try and grab the ball from an opposing player (or coach... or owner...) after a whistle so that he can give it to the referee and inbound the ball quickly. Some people might assume he's concerned about the pace of play, but others might think he's just kind of being a pest.

Here's a clip of him trying to wrestle the ball away from Anthony Edwards at the end of Game 2. It's a dead ball. No one is playing basketball at the time as the teams are walking to the other end of the court after a turnover.

Jokić seems like a pretty smart guy. He must know that this type of action, which he does all the time, actually bothers opponents and ends up slowing the game down. And yet he keeps doing it despite the fact that everybody stopped playing.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nikola Jokić Exacts Revenge By Trolling Timberwolves Rookie in Final Seconds of Game 5.

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This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 9:28 AM.

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