If a hectic Christmas Day brought about an early bedtime, then you missed one heck of a performance by Nikola Jokic late last night. The Joker put up one of the most ridiculous stat lines of all-time, scoring 56 points, grabbing 16 rebounds and dishing out 15 assists to lead the Nuggets to an overtime win over the Timberwolves.
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Minnesota was led by Anthony Edwards, who put up a 44-point effort of his own, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Jokic, who seems to do something more ridiculous every game.
Jokic scored 18 points in overtime alone, and afterwards . Consequently, his teammate Jamal Murray claimed that people don’t give the three-time MVP enough credit for coming through when it really matters.
“It was a really clutch run,” he said. “I don’t think we talk about how clutch Jok is enough. I may make some big shots throughout my career, but we go to him consistently to get there, so shout out to Jok for always being that guy.”
Jokic is so great all the time that NBA fans are almost becoming numb to it. It takes a supernova effort like this one for him to get the respect that he deserves, but at this point, he’s already firmly entrenched himself among the all-time greats.
The Serbian star is leading the league in rebounds and assists, and is fifth in scoring at 29.8 points per game while shooting an absurd 60.9% from the floor. He’s been the best player in the world for over five years, and still somehow managed to continue improving throughout that time.
This year’s MVP conversation is once again going to be an interesting one. Jokic lost last year to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander despite another banner year. It looked like Shai was again going to have an overwhelming edge in the standings as a point in his favor this year. That’s changed in the last couple weeks though, as the Thunder have dropped three games to the Spurs.
Chasing the 2015-16 Warriors for the all-time wins record no longer seems like a possibility now that OKC is 26-5, and they’re only 2.5 games up on the Spurs and 3.5 games ahead of the Nuggets. That’s taking away Shai’s biggest advantage. He’s also won the award now, so he won’t benefit from the voter fatigue for Jokic that undoubtedly helped him last year.
Jokic and his many talents have often been taken for granted, but last night’s game is a reminder that basketball fans need to appreciate that what they’re seeing is all-time, historical stuff. Nobody has ever played the center position like this, and it shouldn’t take a 56-point triple-double for us to admit that.
