The only respite Nikola Jokic accepted during an unrelenting regular season came after he could do no more to help the Denver Nuggets.

While stars around the league rested in the final days of the regular season, Jokic expressed no interest in a night off or playing any part in manipulating results for optimal playoff position. After 71½ games of bumping and banging around the basket, getting out and running the fast break and almost everything in between, Jokic got a break.

“I just want to be out there and available for the team,” Jokic said May 14 after playing both ends of a back-to-back. “He can decide how much he wants me to play.”

He, or Nuggets coach Michael Malone, allowed Jokic to have a say in whether he rested or played, but midway through Sunday’s season finale in Portland, with the Trail Blazers up 17 and Denver’s first-round matchup set to be impacted by other games, any additional minutes seemed to become an unnecessary risk. Jokic had done enough.

“If people still have any questions about his durability, his toughness, the athleticism, the endurance, I don’t know what they’re watching. The kid has proven time and time again that he’s on a different level in so many ways. What he’s done this year is just another example of that,” Malone said before a May 13 game in Minnesota. “For Nikola, it’s more about pride and (thinking) ‘If I’m not hurt or I can’t play, why shouldn’t I play?’ I think there’s a lot that you really have to respect, because in today’s day and age, a lot of guys run to the first opportunity where they don’t have to compete and play and look for the easy way out. Nikola never does that.”

Despite sitting Sunday’s second half, Jokic finished with 21 points, three rebounds and two assists. That left him with regular-season averages of 26.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 8.3 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting 56.6% from the field, 38.8% from 3 and 86.8% from the free-throw line. He played 34.6 minutes per game, nearly three minutes more than he played in any of his five previous seasons. Those numbers, coupled with the Nuggets’ 47-25 record — good for the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference and home-court advantage a first-round matchup against Portland — have made Jokic a prohibitive favorite for Most Valuable Player, a conversation he’s largely avoided.

“I think the season was great, you know. It was tough. It was 72 games in five months. It’s a little bit different. The games are closer. I think the team did a really good job. We, as an organization, did a good job. Players stepped up in some moments when some guys went down,” Jokic said.

“Me, personally, I think this is my best season — I will say that — in my life.”

The Nuggets needed almost everything Jokic’s best season provided as they battled a series of injuries following a short offseason after Denver’s run to the Western Conference finals. Denver is alone among last year’s conference finalists in securing home-court advantage for the first round of this year’s playoffs.

“To be able to accomplish home-court advantage with all the injuries that we’ve had is just a testament to the character of that group,” Malone said May 11 in Charlotte. “That’s why I love coaching them so much.”

While Jamal Murray’s season-ending injury in April was the most impactful, Denver was hardly, if ever, at full strength this season. JaMychal Green, one of the team’s key offseason acquisitions, wasn’t ready to start the season, and Michael Porter Jr. missed a chunk of January in the league’s health and safety protocols. Gary Harris and Paul Millsap missed stretches of the season before Murray went down, while Will Barton III, Monte Morris and PJ Dozier picked up injuries after.

“It’s a close schedule, guys are missing more games, so it’s hard,” Jokic said. “But it’s (hard) for everybody.”

The result was 22 different starting lineups and no one group starting together for more than 14 games. Jokic made it all work by punishing teams who didn’t bring a double team and finding the open teammate, whoever that may be, when a second defender came his way.

“He’s not one of your superstars where, you know, he’s just got to score, got to score, got to score. If he had a chance to just get 30 assists, I guarantee he would do that before he would get 30 points. When you’ve got a guy like that, that’s willing to pass to anybody when you’re open, it’s so much easier and so much fun to play with,” Morris said after the game in Detroit.

“I think that’s why it works for him. You’ve just got to cut, get to the right spots, and he makes you look, you know, a lot better than you are. He makes me look good all the time on back-door cuts.”

After a few deserved days off, the Nuggets will rely on Jokic’s consistent elite-level contributions when Denver’s postseason run starts Saturday.

“With all the guys that we have out, we’re going to need guys to step up and make shots,” Malone said Wednesday. “Nikola’s going to have carry us, obviously, but other guys will have to step up and be ready to compete on both ends and contribute. I think it’s going to be a fantastic series.”