After they strolled through an open-air market in Sombor, Serbia back in August, winding past exotic fruits of every color, Gary Harris and Nikola Jokic gathered with the center’s family for a feast on the bank of a river dotted with lily pads, just as the sunset began to paint the Eastern European sky.

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There was fresh-caught fish, marinated with peppers. Wine flowed generously. Laughter carried through the country air. As far away from an NBA court as they could be and free from worry, the two players with the keys to the Nuggets’ future were riding a good vibe in Jokic’s hometown.

“We didn’t talk about basketball one time,” Jokic said. “Nothing. Not even a little bit.”

There had been plenty of that earlier in the week, when the two served as instructors at a Basketball Without Borders event in Belgrade, the first such event in Serbia’s history. The day in Sombor, the home Jokic holds so dear, was about something more, about two teammates bonding on a deeper, more personal level.

“Those (connections) mean a ton,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “For Gary Harris to head over there … and take a trip up to Sombor to see where Nikola was born and raised, and see who he is, it probably meant a lot to Nikola to see Gary come up there and be willing to do that. Not many guys are making that trip.”

Whether it was coming together over that “fire” meal, as Harris called it, or simply realizing the next step in their evolution as a tandem, Jokic and Harris have found a new level of chemistry during Denver’s hot start. They’ve been in a Stockton-Malone zone, averaging a combined 43 points per game in the season’s early stages — with one key difference in their method.

The Utah Jazz legends optimized the pick-and-roll as their greatest weapon, an ahead-of-its-time, pick-your-poison attack that helped John Stockton become the league’s all-time leader in assists and helped Karl Malone reach second on its scoring list.

Jokic and Harris are now using a more modern basketball device to terrorize opposing defenses: the DHO.

“It’s a simple play and it can work every time,” Jokic said. “If you execute it the right way and go hard and set the screen, I think you can score it every time, just because it’s simple and deadly.”

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The dribble handoff, as the DHO is more formally known, has become one of the NBA’s most-used actions over the past several seasons, a play that combines elements of pick-and-roll, off-ball cutting and penetration offense. The philosophy is simple: create a two-on-one situation that forces a defender to choose between two equally unappealing options.

No player in the NBA last season finished more DHO possessions than Harris (3.7), and he has used the play as an even bigger weapon this season, averaging 1.38 points per possession on seven of those actions per game. That’s a far higher frequency than the second player on that list, Detroit’s Reggie Bullock, who registers five DHO possessions per game.

When the play is operating at max efficiency for Denver, like it has for much of this season, it usually finishes something like this:

“At the end of the day, it’s all reads and it’s fun because you don’t know what you’re going to get yourself into,” Harris said. “Each game could be different.”

If their read-and-react offense is the heartbeat of the Nuggets’ rise over the last couple seasons, the Jokic-Harris DHO is the aorta. And no tandem in the league is pumping with as much efficiency as Denver’s young stars.

“They are both threats,” Nuggets forward Will Barton said. “Jokic is usually catching the ball, and his man is a little bit behind him from trying to help. He catches it and you have to respect that he can shoot it right there, so you’re already off balance as you try to get back in front of him. Then you have to respect that he can turn the corner himself and go for a layup. Then, Gary’s man might be helping a little bit and Gary is just flying off it. If you go under he can pull back and shoot a 3, and if you go over he has the ability to get around and finish or make a play for another person.”

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Sometimes the DHO is part of a designed play, like the sequence below in the season opener against the Clippers. Before Harris even gets to Jokic for the handoff, Paul Millsap sets a pindown screen on Harris’ man, Avery Bradley. By the time Harris takes the ball from Jokic, Bradley is so far behind the play that he looks like a kid who missed the bus and is trying to catch it as it heads to the next stop. That leaves Marcin Gortat with a no-win situation. Does he try to sell out and meet Harris at the rim? Or does he stay on Jokic to prevent an easy drop-off to Denver’s sure-handed big man? Gortat short-circuits into something of an in between effort that really gives him no shot as Harris speeds to the rim.

“The whole league is running that; it’s a big part of the defensive breakdown, and it’s not just Denver,” Suns coach Igor Kokoskov said. “But having Nikola Jokic as a weapon, he’s one of the best playmaking bigs in the league. It’s not just about the play. It’s about who is involved in the play. Having a great shooter, as Harris is, and a great passer, as Nikola is, that changes the play completely. It’s a big part of anyone’s preparation when they come to play Denver.”

The play left the champs frustrated last week in Denver. Warriors guard Klay Thompson, the team’s best perimeter defender, was tasked with chasing Harris time and time again as he ran toward Jokic. There were times, when Thompson was trailing too close, that Jokic would lift the ball up instead of giving it to his teammate, searching instead for another pass to make. But the threat of the play forced Thompson to be vigilant the entire game, and when an overaggressive pursuit in the fourth quarter led to a foul, he threw his hands in the air.

After the game, Warriors forward Draymond Green empathized with the predicament Thompson found himself in throughout the night.

“Gary Harris is a hell of a cutter, so you gotta be into his body,” Green said. “He’s flying off the screen to his right hand and he’s great at that. So you gotta body up, then you get called for going over the screen. I don’t know what you do there.”

Then there is the unspoken communication between Jokic and Harris that can turn the DHO, which can sometimes be initiated with something as simple as the raising of an eyebrow, into something else. For example, if a defender is cheating over the top in an attempt to beat Harris to Jokic’s handoff, Harris can instead cut back door in a blink and turn a crisp Jokic pass into an easy basket.

It’s the skill Jokic and big men like him have with the ball in their hands that has led to a rise in DHO possessions. Harris led the league with those 3.7 possessions of that action last season. Two years earlier, the leader, Avery Bradley, averaged a full possession fewer per game, a sizable difference over the course of an entire season.

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“When I was in Sacramento and Phoenix, we didn’t really run no dribble handoffs,” said current Nuggets guard Isaiah Thomas, who became one of the game’s most dangerous finishers with the play once he paired with skilled big man Al Horford in Boston. “The dribble handoffs really got big in the last few years with a lot of teams seeing the success with it, especially if you have somebody who can shoot it and put the ball on the ground. It’s tough to guard when you have a dynamic guard coming off it.”

Added Malone: “The NBA is a herd mentality. One team does it and you say, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good,’ and we all steal from each other. Obviously, it’s been a pretty effective play for us, especially because it’s Nikola and it’s Gary in a high percentage of those DHOs.”

Thomas explained the danger Harris poses to defenses with the DHO by pointing to his first read in the play. Sometimes a defender, wary that Harris will zoom by him if the guard takes a handoff going downhill, will go under Jokic, such as Utah’s Ricky Rubio did last season in the play below. The problem there is that Harris is mechanical in his ability to recognize the sagging defender, take the ball, step into perfect rhythm and knock down a 3-pointer. And Jokic’s big frame creates a challenging obstacle for a defender who tries to close out after making the ill-fated decision to go under the handoff.

“It just puts defenses in a tough situation where you have to pick your poison,” Thomas said.

The DHO is a favorite among guards for a number of reasons. It helps them get a step on a defender. It can, depending on where the handoff is made, give them downhill momentum. But most of all it opens a number of different options that give the player with the ball in his hands a number of choices to make, a responsibility playmakers crave.

“I love the handoffs,” said Heat guard Wayne Ellington, who was third behind Harris and J.J. Redick in DHO possessions last season. “It’s kind of like the guy with the ball is the quarterback and I’m the running back coming off. He has the decision to keep it or hand it off to me and I get to decide what play to make, whether it’s a shot or getting to the paint.”

Individual improvements Harris has built into his game have made his involvement in DHOs even harder to handle. The guard has added a sharp, behind-the-back, pull-up jumper that he can release on a dime. So imagine being a defender trying like hell to chase this fast, strong guard — while pushing past a 6-foot-10, 250-pound center, mind you — only to have that guard stop in a blink, leaving you no time to recover.

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“Teams have to figure out how to guard it,” Nuggets forward Torrey Craig said. “Until then, Gary’s just going to keep having big games. It’s a real difficult action to guard with those two players.”

Teams will soon make adjustments. Perhaps they will blitz the DHO, sending a help defender to force Harris to give up the ball as soon as he takes it from Jokic. But the five assists he had in Tuesday’s win over Sacramento illustrates the ability Harris has developed to make plays for others on the move. And his improved ball-handling in traffic has helped him improvise under pressure.

Chances are Jokic and Harris will find a way to counter any adjustments thrown their way. As long as the scheming doesn’t interrupt dinner.

(Top Photo: Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)