NBA 2018-19: 3 talking points from San Antonio Spurs' surprise win over Denver Nuggets

The San Antonio Spurs came up with a surprise victory over top seeds Denver Nuggets with a final score line of 111-103.

They played hard, they played good and executed the plan throughout, which led them to this crucial victory over the table toppers Denver Nuggets.

The Spurs made sure that they do not let Nikola Jokic perform his magic on them and locked him down from the very beginning. This did wonders for them as the Nuggets then couldn’t find someone else to do Jokic’s job, which is pretty much everything.

With this victory, the Spurs are now back in the Playoff spot with the no .8th seed and a record of 19-16. On the other hand, the Denver Nuggets have lost their crown to the defending champs Golden State Warriors and are now seated at the 2nd spot.

With all that in mind, here are the top 3 points from this match -

#3. Lockdown of Nikola Jokic

Anytime your best player fails to perform well and is not able to produce normal outputs then the team is bound to be in trouble and possibly lose the game.

That is what happened with the Nuggets. Jokic was not in his own as he failed to give the Nuggets what they always expect from him -- produce plays, score points and also come up with crucial rebounds, and more than anything else, lead his team from the front.

Hopefully, this was just a one-off from Jokic as he has been averaging 17.7ppg, 9.8rebs, 7.3asts and 1.5 steals. He is a triple-double machine and makes sure that he always delivers for his team.

Props to the Spurs defense and coach for making sure that they stopped Jokic from getting hot early on and make any impact.

#2. Taking high quality shots

Any time a team takes high converting, high quality shots which goes in, there is a huge chance that team is going to win. This was just a classic case of it.

The Spurs made sure that they passed the ball well, and they passed the ball often, into the hands of the open man who had the best look at the basket. This made sure that they shoot at a high percentage of 46% from the field and take this victory away from the Denver Nuggets.

And due to their good passing abilities and unselfish display of basketball, they also came up with 29 assists. The Spurs are in the top half of the table in sharing the ball and getting crucial assists.

Their system of play highly depends on unselfish plays and creating high quality shots which is designed by one of the greatest coaches Gregg Popovich.

#1. The duo of Aldridge and DeRozan

The new NBA is a league filled with superteams and dynamic duos. In the past few years this has been a classic trend. Two or more all-stars come together to form a superteam with the hope of winning a championship.

This is the same case for the San Antonio Spurs. Their All-Star duo of Aldridge and DeRozan is very important for their playoff hopes. They are two of the best in the game when it comes to taking shots from the mid-range.

And they both can easily go off for more than 20 points on a nightly basis. And in today's game, this is what happened.

The Nuggets didn’t have any answer to this duo. They played like a glue, kept the team together, while also created points for each other.

This is what San Antonio hoped when putting them together, and finally their plans are coming to fruition.

In the next game, the Spurs will face the Nuggets again, but this time in an away game. So, it will be interesting to see how Nikola Jokic and Co. respond to this loss.