Hoops Rumors ordinarily doesn’t cover this sort of thing, at least not directly. But the historic performances tonight by Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in the Nuggets‘ 109-94 Game 3 victory over the Heat are worth highlighting.
Jokic and Murray became the first teammates in NBA history — regular season or playoffs — to record 30-point triple-doubles in the same game, the league announced (via Twitter). And it came on the biggest stage, during the NBA Finals.
Jokic, the two-time MVP, finished with 32 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists, which made him the first player to record a 30-20-10 game in the Finals, ESPN Stats & Info tweets. That marks his third career 30-20-10 playoff game; there have only been two other postseason instances of that stat line, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain recording one apiece.
Murray also made individual history, becoming the first player to record 10-plus assists in his each of his first three Finals games, per ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk (Twitter link). The 26-year-old finished with 34 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said it was “by far their greatest performance as a duo,” according to Mike Singer of The Denver Post (Twitter link).
As impressive as the victory was, it was still only one game, and the series is far from over. The Nuggets now lead the best-of-seven series 2-1, with Game 4 set for Friday night in Miami.
Jokic on his way to be the GOAT!!!
Team basketball at it’s finest.
Jimmy gonna need to guarantee another win soon!
Denver regaining home court advantage seems worth highlighting as well. Plus they finally had a 4th quarter that wasn’t terrible, like the first two games.
Miami found a formula for taking Murray out of the game in game 2. Denver countered with high screens and double screens to get
him open last night. Adjustments. Why is that so difficult to grasp?
I’ll be interested to see what Spoelstra does in game 4.
Epic game there… Hope they can keep it up…
What happened to Butler and all that winning talk? LOLZ! Miami has to be one of the all-time worst teams to make a finals.
Naw. I’d place the Magic or Nets visits to the finals against the Lakers in the early 2000’s as being the most overmatched
Your Buttler hate is reaching epic levels
Just because you don’t like the truth doesn’t make it “hate.” Butler talks about winning and then never does.
Miami is a good team, Denver is just better. Give some respect to what Jokic and Murray are doing instead of hating on the heat because they beat your team
Happy that Murray was able to comeback from injury the way he has. Jokic might be the heart of this team, but they live and die with Murray.
Yup big time win. Especially your stars stepping up. Porter with another terrible gm. Thank god for Braun eyyyyy. Porter does not like physicality. Just watch him …… takes him out the gm. Another overrated player getting paid.
Is Porter overrated? He got the max because some garbage team would have given him the max. Porters D and shot selection is one of the reasons I thought denver would lose
Let’s go NUGGETS!!!!!!!