NBA fans were treated to a pair of incredible performances by two of the greatest offensive players the game has ever seen Tuesday night. After Stephen Curry went for 52 points and 12 3-pointers, Nikola Jokić put up a career-high 61 points on the Timberwolves in what was one of the wildest regular-season games you will ever see.
For the record, this marked the first time in NBA history that two former MVPs have gone for 50 points on the same night, and the second time in history that any two players have gone for at least 50 points, 10 rebounds and five assists on the same night, joining Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor who did it in 1963.
Curry was incredible on Tuesday. Jokić was even better.
The difference? Curry’s performance came in a win, while Jokić’s showing was spoiled by a pair of late-game Russell Westbrook gaffes that pretty much gift-wrapped a double-overtime victory to Minnesota after Denver appeared to have the game in hand.
With under 15 seconds to play in double overtime and Denver leading by one, Westbrook was at the right place at the right time as Anthony Edwards bounced a no-man’s-land pass right into his hands. Westbrook had two choices at this point: Push the ball into the front-court and try to get it to a better free-throw shooter as the Wolves would’ve been forced to foul, or just hit the gas and charge ahead with the 2-on-1 advantage before him.
He chose the latter, and it wasn’t a terrible decision. Whether it came via two free throws or a transition bucket, the Nuggets were only going to be up three, with time still on the clock for the Wolves, either way. The problem, to be clear, wasn’t Westbrook’s decision to go for the layup.
The problem, first, was Westbrook absolutely smoking the layup, and second, fouling Nickeil Alexander-Walker on a 3-point attempt with a tenth of a second left on the clock on the other end.
Alexander-Walker made the first two free throws for the Wolves’ 140-139 win and, man, what a shame for that Jokić performance to get wasted in the last 11 or so seconds.
It happens. This was an unbelievable back-and-forth game with heart-pounding plays and shots getting made on both ends for what seemed like about 30 minutes straight. Westbrook is going to get ripped for this, and it’s true, that layup wasn’t even close and the decision to fly that recklessly into a 3-point shooter was a poor one — even if paranoid closeouts are sort of baked into those last-second-shot situations.
With the loss, the Nuggets are now tied in the loss column with the Lakers for the 3-4 seeds, while the Wolves are tied with the Grizzlies for the No. 6 seed with six games remaining. Anthony Edwards was nearly equally brilliant down the stretch for the Timberwolves, hitting a variety of clutch shots en route to 34 points, 10 boards and eight assists.
But this was Jokić’s night. He carded 10 assists and 10 rebounds to go with his 61 points, making it the single highest point total in a triple-double in NBA history. The only two other players in the 60-point triple-double club are James Harden, whose 2018 effort came with 11 assists and 10 rebounds against the Magic, and Luka Doncic’s absurd performance that came with 21 rebounds and 10 assists against the Knicks in 2022.
Somehow, the most impressive number on Jokić’s ledger might not have even been the points, rebounds or assists. The man played 52 minutes. After checking back in at the 6:28 mark of the second quarter, he never went to the bench again. Do the math, and that’s over 40 straight minutes that Jokic played.
Unfortunately, it didn’t end in a win for the Nuggets. That’s not to take anything away from the Timberwolves, who scored a monster win and played lights-out basketball despite two miserable possessions with chances to win the game at the end of regulation and the first overtime. It just feels like Jokić deserved that win.
