Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Who doesn’t love a little game of H-O-R-S-E? On Christmas, two of the very best shot makers in the world will square off in a Mile High City matinee. And there may not be two better H-O-R-S-E players on the planet than Nikola Jokic and Steph Curry.
The two-time MVP and center of the Denver Nuggets makes absurd and awkward shots nightly. The two-time MVP and point guard of the Golden State Warriors is one of the best shooters in the game’s history and spends part of his pregame routine hitting trick shots. The Nuggets and Warriors will get a rematch of their playoff series from two seasons ago with a 12:30 tip time on Christmas Day.
Maybe lost in translation from his native Serbian tongue or just keen to be around his favorite animal, the NBA’s newest advertisement for the game has some fun with horse.
Few people on the planet love equines like Jokic. The 28-year-old spends much of his offseason on the race track, taking care of his trotters. This past summer Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon cheered Jokic’s horses on with him in Europe. During the season, Jokic is often spotted checking up on the horse world from his phone in the locker room.
With Gordon in the house, Jokic watched as his top trotter Brenno Laumar earned first place in the Preradovic Family Memorial Race, worth a purse of 150,000 dinars (just under $500,000.) Brenno Laumar was on a stretch of winning five of the seven races a the time. His Dream Catcher Sable also had Amsterdam JMH and Aragorn grab second place in front of AG.
While a Google search for Jokic and horse brings up the animal the same search with Curry brings up the hoops-related game. Steph challenged his dad and NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry to a game, and he once took on some high schoolers too.