Nikola Jokic & Jason Kidd Are Only 2 Players to Accomplish This NBA Finals Feat

In the Denver Nuggets’ 104-93 Game 1 win over the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, Nikola Jokic did what has only been done once before by Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd.

Dalton Trigg | Jun 3, 2023

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The Denver Nuggets took a 1-0 lead over the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals on Thursday, and two-time MVP Nikola Jokic accomplished something that has only been done once before in league history.

Jokic finished with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists, making him the second player ever to notch a triple-double in his Finals debut.

The other player to do it? Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd, who put up 23 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists as a member of the New Jersey Nets in a Game 1 loss to Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal’s Los Angeles Lakers in the 2002 Finals.

What’s ironic about Jokic doing something that hadn’t been done since Kidd did it 21 years ago is that former NBA star Tracy McGrady went on a podcast the day before and compared Jokic to Kidd.

"[Nikola Jokic] is so f****** good, man,” McGrady said on an episode of SHOWTIME Basketball’s What’s Burnin’ with Rachel Nichols.

“I haven't seen anything like him. He's like Jason Kidd as a point guard. He's on the verge of winning his first championship and he's gonna be the [Finals] MVP."

Between Jokic making NBA history alongside Kidd and being compared to Mavs legend Dirk Nowitzki, it’s been an eventful week of Denver and Dallas crossing paths in the news cycle.

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Published Jun 3, 2023

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.