Just four minutes and twenty-eight seconds into the second quarter of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic retreated to his team's bench having committed his third foul of the game. That's when the team knew their 7-foot passing savant was in trouble.
Five-thousand miles away, Dejan Milojevic, Jokic's beloved Serbian coach, had already concluded that -- well in advance of the referee's whistle. Milojevic had tracked his former pupil carefully on his big-screen television as he went through pregame warm-ups, and noted, with some dismay, that the big man's mannerisms were uncharacteristically jittery.