Nikola Jokic went about 2.5 quarters in a row without scoring the single, solitary point he needed for the “points” component of his usual triple-double. Even as he acquired the other stats with ease, he stubbornly refused to score. I spent most of that time yelling at my stream, telling the other Nuggets to stop scoring and telling Malone that he needed to run more isos for him. I also, sad to say, yelled at Jokic a bit, especially when he missed that free-throw that they gave him out of pity.
He finally hit a clutch midrange jumper to put the Nuggets up by two with a minute left, saving me the pain of having to upload this thing without the “Triple Double” part of the title. Maybe I wouldn’t have even done it. Jokic scoring this few points is only highlight worthy because of the triple-double; 11 points is not too far off from 9.
Russell Westbrook and, to a lesser extent, Jokic, has made it so that these things aren’t even that exciting anymore. Remember when Ben Uzoh had one of the dozen or so triple-doubles that happened in the 2011-12 season? That was a major occurrence, but now, triple-doubles happen every night it seems like.