{"id":117352,"date":"2025-01-11T07:36:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T12:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=117352"},"modified":"2025-01-11T07:36:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T12:36:04","slug":"jokic-westbrook-triple-double-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/11\/jokic-westbrook-triple-double-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic And Russell Westbrook Make NBA History On Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When one thinks about the face of the triple-double, two players may come to mind. One is the all-time leader in the category, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westbru01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Westbrook<\/a>. The other is three-time MVP, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a>. The 6- foot-11 center is just shy this year of becoming the third player ever to average a triple-double in a season.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably, they are now currently teammates with the Denver Nuggets. On Friday, the two future Hall of Famers made history in Denver\u2019s win.<\/p>\n<h2>Nikola Jokic And Russell Westbrook Make NBA History On Friday<\/h2>\n<h3>Jokic And Westbrook Make Triple-Double History<\/h3>\n<p>On Friday evening, the Nuggets defeated the Brooklyn Nets by the score of <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401705097\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">124-105<\/a>. The win improved Denver\u2019s record to 22-15, fourth-best in the Western Conference. The win was a historic one for the legendary duo. They became the first pair of teammates to have triple-doubles in the same game more than once.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">TRIPLE-DOUBLE MACHINES \ud83d\udc4a\ud83d\udc4a<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd0b Joki\u0107: 35p, 15a, 12r<br \/>\ud83d\udd0b Russ: 25p, 10a, 11r<\/p>\n<p>They are the first pair of teammates in NBA history to both record a triple-double in the same game MULTIPLE TIMES in a single season \ud83e\udd2f <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oAJg8IB8Ul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/oAJg8IB8Ul<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NBA (@NBA) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/1877941681833562116?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 11, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>One of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/04\/shai-gilgeous-alexander-front-runner-mvp\/\" target=\"_self\">favorites to win MVP<\/a>, which would be his fourth, Jokic had a typical performance in which he dominated the opponent on Friday. He finished the outing with 35 points, 12 rebounds, and 15 assists (also had four steals). The 29-year-old shot 14-21 from the field, 6-8 from the free-throw line, and made his one three-point try.<\/p>\n<p>Jokic certainly wasn\u2019t the only Nuggets player to stuff the stat sheet on Friday. In his first season with the Nuggets, Westbrook has looked revitalized after a slow start. In the contest against the Nets, his final stat line consisted of 25 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists. The 36-year-old shot 8-17 from the field, 2-5 from beyond the arc, and 7-9 from the charity stripe.<\/p>\n<p>This was the second time that the pair each secured a triple-double in the same game. They also did so \u00a011 days prior to Friday on December 30 in Denver\u2019s <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401705011\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">132-121<\/a> win over the Utah Jazz. In that contest, Jokic finished with 36 points, 22 rebounds, and 11 assists. Westbrook had a game of 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists.<\/p>\n<h3>Westbrook Extends His All-Time Record<\/h3>\n<p>Friday was Jokic\u2019s league-leading 15th triple-double of the season. The Serbian superstar is four assists shy of being on pace to become the third player ever to average a triple-double for the season (316 assists in 32 outings), Friday was the 145th triple-double of his career, already the third-most in league history.<\/p>\n<p>One name that he is looking up at on that list is his teammate Westbrook. Friday helped to extend his NBA record of now 202 triple-doubles. That is 21 more then Oscar Robertson, who is second on the list with 181.<\/p>\n<p>Westbrook and Robertson are the only two to average a triple-double in a season. The former is the only one to accomplish the feat in multiple seasons. Westbrook first did so in 2016-17, when he was named MVP while with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He also did so the following two seasons with Oklahoma City as well as 2020-21 while playing for the Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n<p>Now in his 17th season, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/08\/nuggets-russell-westbrook-nikola-jokic-fit\/\" target=\"_self\">Westbrook has looked<\/a> rejuvenated with his new team. He now has three triple-doubles this season. He had just one in 89 outings with his previous team, the Los Angeles Clippers. After a slow start, Denver is now experiencing more vintage Westbrook performances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When one thinks about the face of the triple-double, two players may come to mind. One is the all-time leader in the category, Russell Westbrook. The other is three-time MVP, Nikola Jokic. The 6- foot-11 center is just shy this year of becoming the third player ever to average a triple-double in a season. Remarkably, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":117365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,20,62,3],"tags":[40976,49749,72,53],"class_list":["post-117352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-nba","category-news","tag-nba-history","tag-nba-record","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-russell-westbrook"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117352"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117366,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117352\/revisions\/117366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}