Nikola Jokic is set to undergo testing after an injury scare on Monday night.
In a matchup between the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat, Jokic went down within the final seconds of the second quarter. His setback happened after a teammate stepped on his foot, causing an apparent knee injury.
Jokic was clearly in pain, and his status for the remainder of the game immediately went into question. As the matchup played out, the Nuggets ultimately ruled him out for the rest of the game.
After the blowout loss against the Heat, Nuggets head coach David Adelman spoke on the setback.
“All I know is that Jokic has a left knee injury, and he needs to go through the process of what it is… immediately, he knew something was wrong,” Adelman said.
“This is part of the NBA. Anyone who gets hurt, it’s gut-wrenching. Especially somebody as special as he is. We’ll find out more tomorrow and move on as a team. I’m more concerned about him as a person and the disappointment of going through something like that. It’s unfortunate, and we’re hoping for the best. We have to stay with it to best support our teammates who are out and honor them when they play. It sucks, but hoping for the best.”
A Sports Doctor Weighs In
Sports medicine analyst Brian Sutterer reviewed the video to outline the possibilities of Jokic’s eventual diagnosis.
Based on the evidence presented, the sports doctor is admittedly more “optimistic” than “pessimistic.”
“This overall looks like a lower-grade, lower-severity type of hyperextension,” he explained.
“The other good thing is that nobody hit directly on the knee backwards, and he wasn’t running while this was occurring. … A knee hyperextension can absolutely cause something more serious like an ACL or PCL tear. However, in this scenario, I think there are more positive prognostic things to look at than there are negative.”
As expected, it’s too difficult to predict a diagnosis solely based on a video, and not the actual MRI. But Sutterer remains confident that the Nuggets could end up in a favorable situation regarding Jokic.
“Hyperextensions are notoriously one of the harder injuries to predict from video, so don’t be too hard on me if I’m wrong here, but I’ve watched a lot of these injuries on replay over the years and do think it’s more positive than negative,” he concluded.
The Nuggets will have a better idea of Jokic’s timeline on Tuesday. Whether it’s short or long-term, the Nuggets are entering unknown territory this year, as Jokic had yet to miss a game before Monday’s action.