Jusuf Nurkić Makes Jazz History With Three Straight Triple-Doubles—In a 31-Point Loss

The fans at Delta Center did not have much to cheer by the time the fourth quarter wound down Saturday night.

The Miami Heat were running up the score, the Utah Jazz were getting pushed off the glass, and the scoreboard told a blunt story: a 147-116 blowout in Salt Lake City.

Then Jusuf Nurkić secured his 10th rebound.

As the veteran center walked to the bench shortly afterward, a murmur turned into applause. The public-address announcer noted that Nurkić had recorded another triple-double — 17 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists — and a small but noticeable pocket of fans rose in recognition. On a night when Utah was outscored by 31 points at home, the franchise’s record book was quietly rewritten.

With that stat line in a lopsided loss to Miami on Jan. 24, Nurkić became the first player in Jazz history to post triple-doubles in three consecutive games. The 6-foot-11 Bosnian had logged 16 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists in a win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Jan. 20, then followed with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists in a loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Jan. 22.

He had entered the week with one triple-double in his 10-year NBA career.

“It’s the first time that a Utah (or New Orleans) Jazz player has ever logged three triple-doubles in a row and it’s truly impressive that he’s been battling illness the last two games and still managed to fill up the stat sheet,” the Deseret News wrote after the Miami game, noting team officials said Nurkić had been under the weather.

The historic stretch arrived in the middle of a season that has little to do with chasing wins. Utah fell to 15-31 with the loss to Miami, dropping six of its last seven games and sitting near the bottom of the Western Conference as it gives extended minutes to a young core.

In that context, Nurkić’s streak is both a statistical outlier and a snapshot of what the modern Jazz are trying to be — and how far they still have to go.

A week that reshaped a record book

The run began Jan. 20 against Minnesota, when Nurkić turned in 16 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists in a 127-122 comeback victory. It was only the second triple-double of his career and his first since 2019.

That night was notable for other reasons. The Jazz were without All-Star forward Lauri Markkanen, yet rallied from 15 points down behind a 43-point outburst from second-year guard Keyonte George and 20 points from rookie wing Ace Bailey. Head coach Will Hardy collected his 100th career victory.

Two days later, Nurkić turned in an even more pronounced passing display in a 126-109 loss to the Spurs, finishing with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists. League recaps noted he became the first Jazz player to post back-to-back triple-doubles since Pete Maravich accomplished the feat in January 1975.

By the time Miami arrived, the pattern was becoming clear: Utah was running more of its offense through Nurkić at the elbows and top of the key, using him as a fulcrum to find cutters and shooters.

The result against the Heat, however, underscored the limits of individual production. Miami dominated the interior behind Bam Adebayo’s 26 points and 15 rebounds, overwhelming Utah on the boards by a 64-34 margin and racking up 26 offensive rebounds.

“That was as big a physical loss as you can have,” Hardy said after the game. “Just got obliterated on the glass. You lose the glass by 30 and give up 26 offensive rebounds, there’s not really a pathway to winning in that game.”

Nurkić’s triple-double came with a plus-minus of minus-30, the worst single-game plus-minus ever recorded by a player with a triple-double, according to team historians and independent statistical tracking.

A franchise not built on triple-doubles

For most of their history, the Jazz have rarely been associated with triple-doubles.

From Feb. 13, 2008, when Carlos Boozer recorded one, to Jan. 2024, when Jordan Clarkson finally snapped the dry spell, Utah went 1,256 regular-season games without a triple-double. That stretch covered the tail end of the Deron Williams and Boozer era, the rise and departure of Gordon Hayward and the early years of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.

Even in the franchise’s most successful period, during the John Stockton–Karl Malone years, gaudy all-around stat lines were not a staple. The Jazz’s system prioritized defined roles — a pass-first point guard, a high-usage scorer at power forward, and defensive specialists — over the kind of heliocentric, all-stat accumulation associated with today’s stars.

Before Nurkić’s recent surge, only four players had multiple triple-doubles in Jazz regular-season history: Maravich with seven, center Mark Eaton with six (many driven by double-figure blocks), Malone with three and forward Andrei Kirilenko with three.

Now, after just 36 games with the team, Nurkić has joined that group and done something none of them accomplished.

“In one of the most random statistical stretches in Utah Jazz history, Jusuf Nurkic has done what no other Utah Jazz player past or present has done: record three straight triple-doubles,” local site SLC Dunk wrote, adding that he is only the fourth center in league history to reach that mark.

A modern big man on a rebuilding team

The week is less surprising when placed next to Nurkić’s season-long profile. Entering the Miami game, he was averaging roughly 11 points, 10 rebounds and nearly 5 assists per contest, functioning as a playmaking center more than a traditional rim-running big.

Utah has leaned into that skill set with a roster built around developing perimeter players. George has emerged as a primary scorer. Bailey, Isaiah Collier and other recent first-round picks have been encouraged to cut, screen and read the floor off the ball rather than dominate it in isolation. Nurkić, a 10-year veteran who has played for Denver, Portland, Phoenix and Charlotte, has become the connector.

Film and box scores from the week show a consistent pattern: handoffs to free George and fellow guards, high-post passes to backdoor cutters and skip passes to shooters in the corners.

The Spurs game in particular highlighted that approach. While De’Aaron Fox and Victor Wembanyama powered San Antonio’s offense, Nurkić repeatedly picked out teammates for layups and open threes, finishing with a season-high 14 assists.

The Jazz have also asked him to anchor a patchwork defense missing center Walker Kessler for stretches. That responsibility has been less successful. Utah ranks near the bottom of the league in defensive efficiency, and the 30-rebound deficit to Miami was a stark indicator of how vulnerable the Jazz remain physically, especially with Markkanen sidelined.

Meaningful milestone, complicated setting

The collision of Nurkić’s numbers and Utah’s losses has prompted a familiar question around the league: how much weight should be given to triple-doubles in games that are not competitive?

Team officials and local commentators have been careful to provide context.

“In an ideal world, we would be talking about and celebrating Jusuf Nurkić’s third straight triple-double he posted Saturday night,” the Deseret News wrote, before immediately pivoting to the rebounding disparity and the Heat’s 31-point margin.

Analysts have also pointed out that single-game plus-minus can be noisy and dependent on lineup combinations and opponent runs. Still, Nurkić’s minus-30 in a record-setting triple-double underscored the Jazz’s dual reality — they can discover development milestones and historical firsts while still being outclassed on the scoreboard.

For Nurkić, the week reshapes the way his time in Utah may be remembered. He arrived as a veteran stopgap on a roster building toward a future that may not include him long term. He now holds a place in team history that links him, at least statistically, to Maravich, Eaton, Malone and Kirilenko.

“This could very well be Nurkic’s only season in Utah,” SLC Dunk noted, predicting that in two decades, fans will remember “the triple-double drought” and think of his three-game streak.

Whether or not he stays beyond this season, the snapshot from late January 2026 is likely to endure: a rebuilding team, a roster full of 20-somethings, and a 31-year-old center who, for one week in Salt Lake City, could not stop piling up points, rebounds and assists — even when the games themselves were slipping away.