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PHILADELPHIA – You could hear them. There weren’t a lot of them, but they started to filter down from the lower section.

All the way from Syracuse, N.Y., Nathan Byrne made the 269-mile trip to see his “GOAT.” Wearing an Emmanuel Mudiay jersey and holding an 8 1/2-by-11 sheet of paper with Nikola Jokic’s face photoshopped on a goat, Byrne led a small contingent of Denver Nuggets fans in “MVP!” chants in Wells Fargo Center as superstar center Nikola Jokic made his first bucket of the game Friday night against the Philadelphia 76ers.

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Though the chants never fully spread, Byrne and those around him persisted.

Byrne doesn’t get to see Jokic up close on a nightly basis. But teammates of the three-time NBA MVP do. They agree with Byrne: Jokic is one of the best to ever do it. And he’s doing it again this season.

“I think he’s the MVP. I think he’s MVP every year,” Nuggets guard Christian Braun, a Jokic teammate of two-plus seasons, said after Denver’s loss in Chicago on Monday.

“There’s no discredit to anybody else around the league. I think that he’s putting up better numbers than anybody has ever put up ever.”

By any metric, Jokic is having one of the greatest seasons in NBA history. He’s averaging a triple-double and is in the top three in the NBA in points per game (29.6, third), rebounds per game (12.8, tied for third), assists per game (10.1, second) and 3-point shooting (47.5 percent, third). In addition to that eye-opening 3-point percentage, he’s shooting 57 percent from the field and 81.3 percent from the line.

And while the traditional stats are impressive, we can get nerdy, too. This season’s 32.8 PER would be the highest in NBA history if it weren’t for … himself. Jokic set the record in 2021-22, his second MVP season, with 32.85. He also leads the NBA in such advanced stat categories as win shares (10.9), offensive win shares (7.9), box plus/minus (13.8) and VORP, basketball’s version of baseball’s WAR (6.1).

Looking to snap a season-high three-game skid, the Nuggets (29-19) needed every and any number Jokic could provide against an undermanned Sixers (19-28) squad. In a back-and-forth game that saw 16 lead changes, 19 Denver turnovers (six of which belonged to Jokic) and Sixers superstar Joel Embiid sidelined with a knee injury, the Nuggets, thanks to their MVP’s late-game magic, pulled out a 137-134 win on Friday.

“I told our team it won’t always be pretty,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said after the game. “Nineteen more turnovers for 30 points. Too many made 3s for them. But in the fourth quarter, we got enough stops, we executed down the stretch. Nikola made some big shots. Jamal (Murray) obviously all game long. Michael (Porter Jr.) made a big play.

“It just feels good to have a win.”

With the game on the line, the Nuggets put the ball in Jokic’s hands. With 39 seconds left and the game deadlocked at 130, he made the tiebreaking 3-pointer and finished with 28 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds, missing a triple-double by one rebound. He leads the league with 21 (in 42 games played), the third consecutive season in which he’s eclipsed at least 20 triple-doubles in a season. His career high is 29. The Nuggets have 34 games remaining.

While his stats may scream all-time greatness, one might describe Jokic’s game as quiet dominance. He doesn’t brag or boast; he just wants to hoop and go home.

“I think experience is something that is really important in a team situation,” Jokic said in Philadelphia. “To win, to lose, to (have) moments like this. Tough games, easy games. I think everything has been building character and everything is important.”

Murray, now in his ninth year as Jokic’s teammate, has been with the three-time MVP for nearly every step of his professional basketball journey. He echoes the low-key sentiment of letting Jokic’s skills do the talking.

“I think the way he’s playing and his demeanor and his leadership, I think that all speaks for itself,” Murray said Monday. “He’s someone that goes and brings it every single night on a daily basis and makes everybody around him better. So I think that’s undeniable.”

But Jokic’s jaw-dropping stats are hard to ignore. He provided an excellent example in a 132-123 victory over Sacramento Kings on Jan. 23, joining Wilt Chamberlain as the only player to record 35 points, 20 rebounds and 15 assists in a game. Jokic has had four 20-rebound triple-doubles this season. He’s scored 40 points or more six times, with a season-high of 56 in a loss to the Wizards(!).

“It’s hard to deny his greatness,” Murray said. “If you look at the stats, and his stats are better than every other MVP (season) he’s ever had, then you know, what can you say? Well, what’s going to be your argument?”

Though the consensus building around the current NBA MVP race is that it’s between Jokic, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Gilgeous-Alexander has become the front-runner recently as the Thunder lead the West with a 37-9 record and he leads the league in scoring with 32.5 points per game.

Jokic is currently second behind Gilgeous-Alexander in BetMGM odds at +240, and the NBA.com MVP ladder has Gilgeous-Alexander ahead in its metric. Still, Jokic’s routine historic performances are redefining what greatness looks like, even if Malone doesn’t treat them as such.

“I don’t coach him like he’s elite,” Malone said. “I coach him like he’s a player, and I coach him the same way I coach Peyton Watson.

“Nikola is a hell of a player, and I’m obviously very fortunate to have the opportunity to coach a player like Nikola, as a player, as a person, all of those things.”

A fourth MVP award would tie Chamberlain and LeBron James, who also won four MVPs in a five-year span starting with the 2008-09 season. (Celtics great and Hall of Famer Bill Russell, who has five total MVPs, is the only other player to earn the honor in four of five seasons.) But as “voter fatigue” may set in for a second time — the first, it could be argued, was when Embiid won in 2023 — Jokic’s continued sustained excellence hasn’t made him a favorite in the race. For Jokic’s teammates, his greatness is underappreciated in the MVP race.

“He’s someone that goes and brings it every single night on a daily basis and makes everybody around him better,” Murray said.

“We’ve been top seeded for a few years now, and they try to come up with all different kinds of reasons. And I don’t think they really have a strong, strong case. Even if some other guys are playing really well, it’s really hard to deny other numbers that he’s putting up. There’s not much you can say or down him about, especially this year.”

In the final minute Friday in Philadelphia, Byrne’s “GOAT” took over, scoring eight of the Nuggets’ final 10 points to secure the win. He played a little more than half of the fourth quarter in which he scored 13 points, nearly half of his game total of 28.

In a sea of Sixers fans, Byrne rose to his feet, held his paper sign high and chanted, “MVP! MVP!”

Jokic’s teammates couldn’t argue.

“So just appreciate greatness,” Murray said. “And it’s fun to play in this time. And I don’t take it for granted.”

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