Legendary stuff from Nikola Jokic and Anthony Davis

The Denver Nuggets kicked off their NBA Title defense with a home win on Saturday night over the Los Angeles Lakers, a 7-seed who the Nuggets defeated in the Western Conference Finals just one year ago. Playing in his 283rd career Playoff game, LeBron James scored 27 points and chipped in with 6 rebounds and 8 assists, but stealing the spotlight from arguably the greatest player of all-time was a pair of big men — Nikola Jokic and Anthony Davis — who delivered a throwback performance that our grandfathers would be proud of, providing us with a box score that hasn’t been equaled since long before I was born.

On Monday’s episode of The Hoop Collective, Brian Windhorst stumped his co-hosts with a trivia question accurately depicts how impressive the performances of Jokic and Davis were.

“Do you know the last time, according to Stats and Info, that two Centers went for 30 (points), 10 (rebounds), and 5 assists in a playoff game?” Windhorst asked Tim Bontemps and Tim McMahon.

“Are you talking like Duncan and Shaq, are you talking Hakeem and Robinson?” Bontemps asked.

“Wilt and Kareem is my final answer,” McMahon answered.

This is when Windy came down with a sledgehammer that was forged all the way back in the 1960s.

In a 114-103 defeat, Anthony Davis put up 32 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks, while Jokic finished with 32 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists. By typical Jokic standards, this is a relatively mundane performance. The Joker is regularly doing things that were last done decades ago, or never before accomplished. I mean we’re talking about a guy who averaged 30 points, 13.5 rebounds and 9.5 assists per game during Denver’s entire postseason run last year. But never before has Jokic been matched by an opponent like this in a Playoff game.

And frankly, even for Russell and Wilt, rivals who faced each other more times in the postseason than any other pair of Hall of Fame players in league history, this kind of statistical output was rare. Consider that Chamberlain and Russell played each other in 40 more postseason games after this meeting, and never again did they combine for those kinds of numbers. Nor did Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson (6 meetings), Moses Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (7 meetings), Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal (8 meetings), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain (11 meetings), Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal (30 meetings), or Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki (36 meetings).