Nikola Jokic led Serbia to a bronze medal at the Paris Olympic Games and came very close to toppling Team USA in the semi-final and NBA legend Oscar Robertson wasn’t at all happy with how USA handled the big man.
Robertson says that ‘Jokic made a fool out of Team USA’ during their semi-final game, which USA won by a narrow four points (91-95).
“What bothers me more than anything is how does a guy just come up to you and drive around you so easy?” Robertson said on the All The Smoke podcast, seemingly referencing what he saw as laziness on defense from Team USA.
“They don’t slide [their feet] Jokic made a fool out of USA all because that guard didn’t fight through to get to his man. I would never have screens switched onto my man,” the 85-year-old continued.
“Why am I gonna go inside to play through the 7-foot-4 (2.24 m.) guy and USA kept doing that and Jokic kept scoring bad. What was the coach doing, [Steve] Kerr?” the 12-time All-Star player wondered.
“You can’t say you want Steph Curry to switch off on Jokic inside. Well, Curry wouldn’t switch anyways so it wouldn’t really matter.”
In a Nuggets press conference on Thursday, Jokic’s teammate Aaron Gordon spoke about how satisfying it was to see the Serbian big man make USA sweat.
“I was asked if I wanted to play for [Team] USA and then the call never came around. …Then just to see Jokic take them to the wire like that…the dude on my team is finna just wash these cats. …But, all that being said ‘Merica.”
In Paris, Jokic averaged 18.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and 8.7 assists for Serbia.
No doubt the center will be the vital piece in the Nuggets’ championship chase season.
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