The Mavericks' Luka Doncic made NBA history on Tuesday night against the New York Knicks. Drink in the reaction below as fans, members of the media, and players across the league responded to his monstrous stats.
Wednesday 28 December 2022 08:26, UK
A first 60-point triple-double in NBA history is one way to cement your position atop the MVP standings and All-Star permutations. Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic did exactly that on Tuesday night against the New York Knicks, shocking NBA Twitter in the process.
No, it's not a typo. Doncic did indeed score a monstrous 60-point triple-double, the first of its kind in the NBA. That's 60 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists, all racked up against the New York Knicks in Tuesday's night's 126-121 overtime victory.
In doing so, the 23-year-old becomes the youngest player to achieve such an accolade - a record previously held by none other than Wilt Chamberlain (26).
Chamberlain would have been smiling down on Doncic's magic, as he wove his way through and around the Knicks defence, even at one point, hitting a jump shot with one second remaining, after intentionally missing a free throw to send the game into overtime.
He certainly had the fans, media attendance, and players on both sides spellbound, with the NBA twitter sphere just as mesmerised.
Leading the charge was Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who took to Twitter, stating: "We are watching greatness, I've never seen anything like that ever". Us too, Mark, us too.
Former Hall of Famer Kendrick Perkins was just as dumfounded:
"I've played with a lot Hall of Famers and seen some all time great performances… but what I just witnessed from Luka Doncic was one of the greatest individual performances I've ever seen in my damn life!!!! Don't mind me tho and Carry on".
Six-time NBA All-Star Pau Gasol chimed in with the perfect one-word tweet to describe the madness that had ensued: "unreal".
Meanwhile, even players across the league watching couldn't help but comment on the action.
Trae Young, Isaiah Thomas, Kyle Kuzma, DeMar DeRozan and Robert Griffin III were all going crazy on the timeline. The best, however, of the tweets from NBA players was from Kristaps Porzingis who shared the collective bafflement when he tweeted:
"este tio no es normal". Yes Kristap, you're right, no es normal.
You can believe that the sheer confusion, shock, and wonder at what this Slovenian has achieved today won't be dissipating after an evening or two of NBA action. What we have witnessed on Wednesday will go down in history, until someone can come along and mirror Doncic's achievements - or perhaps until Doncic levels up again like some Ben-10 creature and puts up a 70-point triple-double in the next few months (just the thought makes us shudder).
In the meantime, we can all take a few minutes to recover, and let Doncic recover too before February's All-Star game in Salt Lake City. His first words after the game were in fact "I'm tired as hell, I need a recovery beer". We know the feeling.
