Just when it looked like the NBA was winding down on Christmas, two of the league’s biggest stars combined to provide some late drama in one of the best games of the 2025-26 season.
In a contest that featured a double-digit rally, a game-tying fadeaway 3 and a wild overtime that featured a remarkable stretch of pinpoint shotmaking, Nikola Jokić outdueled Anthony Edwards to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 142-138 overtime victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves at Ball Arena.
Jokić finished with 56 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists, including 16 points in the final three minutes of overtime after Minnesota had taken a nine-point lead. It’s the 179th triple double of Jokić career, as he broke his own record for the highest-scoring triple double in NBA Christmas history. Only two other players — Bernard King in 1984 and Wilt Chamberlain in 1961 — have ever scored more points on the holiday.
Edwards, who was battling shoulder pain for much of the night, ended with 44 points, including a game-tying 3 that completed a 24-9 Timberwolves run to force overtime after Denver took a 15-point lead with just under six minutes left.
The Timberwolves would eventually take a nine-point lead in the extra frame before Jokić took over. The Nuggets’ star scored 18 points in the final three minutes of overtime, including a game-tying floater with 1:26 left. He even drew a delay of game technical foul on Edwards by deflecting the ball off the Timberwolves’ superstar while trying to inbound a pass with less than 30 seconds left.
The best player in the NBA? It’s obvious
Over 13 hours of hoops on Christmas Day, the NBA did an excellent job of putting all manner of team and player on its signature day. There was the old guard of Steph Curry, LeBron James and Kevin Durant. We saw some of the most promising players of the next generation with players like Cooper Flagg, Victor Wembanyama and Amen Thompson. Then there were the men of the moment like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards and Jalen Brunson.
When the day was done, one thing was as clear as it has ever been. Nikola Jokić is the best of them all, and it’s not particularly close.
The three-time MVP watched everyone else get their chance to put on a show throughout the day, then capped it off with a jaw-dropper against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Nuggets were missing three starters due to injury and facing one of the hottest teams in the league. It didn’t matter, because Jokić is that damn good. He scored 18 points in the first quarter, had a triple-double midway through the third and added 18 of his 56 points in overtime.
Jokić is leading the NBA in assists and rebounds. He entered the night shooting better than 60 percent from the field, 43 percent from 3-point range and 84 percent from the free-throw line. He is the most unstoppable force in the league and one of the best offensive players to ever play the game. Full stop.
“It’s an honor to watch him play basketball,” Charles Barkley said at halftime.
That is exactly what it feels like.
NIKOLA JOKIĆ WITH VIDEO GAME STATS ON CHRISTMAS DAY 🤯
🃏 56 PTS
🃏 16 REB
🃏 15 AST
🃏 2 BLK
🃏 4 3PMTHE FIRST 55/15/15 GAME IN NBA HISTORY 🚨 pic.twitter.com/8LPXlFWO6V
— NBA (@NBA) December 26, 2025
Gilgeous-Alexander is the reigning MVP and a phenomenal talent on the defending champions in Oklahoma City. He averages about seven fewer rebounds and four fewer assists than Jokić. Luka Dončić is having an incredible season for the Los Angeles Lakers. His shooting splits are 45 percent from the field, 32 percent from 3 and 80 percent from the free-throw line, nowhere near Jokić’s efficiency.
This was eerily similar to a game in Denver last season in which Jokić put up a 60-point triple-double. The Wolves were able to win that one. But not this time. No one else can do what Jokić does. And he’s done it to Minnesota twice. —Jon Krawczynski, Timberwolves senior writer
Anthony Edwards just might be Wolverine
In his five-plus seasons in the NBA, the Timberwolves’ star has made a habit out of suffering what appears to be a debilitating injury early in the game, only to shake it off and come back as if he never felt better.
The latest, and one of the greatest, examples came in the nightcap of the NBA’s Christmas extravaganza. Felled by a shoulder injury in the first half that looked to be incredibly painful, Edwards shrugged it all off to rally the Minnesota Timberwolves from 16 points down in the fourth quarter to send a game to overtime that had no business going there.
The Wolves were dead in the water for much of the second and third quarters, as well as in the start of the fourth quarter, while Edwards kept flexing his right shoulder. He was injured after scoring on a reverse layup and falling to the ground, where he crashed into teammate Mike Conley’s knee. After scoring 14 points in the first quarter, Edwards was scoreless in the second. He was even less effective on defense, where he died on every screen that tested that tender shoulder.
But he came alive in the fourth quarter, scoring 13 points and hitting a ridiculous turnaround 3-pointer over Murray with 1.1 seconds to play in regulation that forced overtime. He scored 11 points in overtime and staked the Wolves to a nine-point lead, but they couldn’t hold off Jokić and Murray down the stretch.
Edwards’ night ended when he was given a second technical foul late in overtime, prompting an ejection. His frustration with the officials was evident throughout the game, but it wasn’t until it had slipped through his fingers that he really lost his cool.
Edwards was 14-of-25 from the field, hit five 3-pointers and was 11-of-13 at the free throw line. When his adrenaline got rolling and the Timberwolves needed him, any pain he was feeling went away.
Edwards went to work. It just wasn’t quite enough. —Krawczynski