Kobe Bryant beat more 50-win teams in the playoffs than any other star in NBA history

NBA fans set social media ablaze with takes last week when Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets fell to the Timberwolves in six games, even despite Minnesota star Anthony Edwards missing multiple games in the series, and his backup, Ayo Dosunmu , also missing the deciding Game 6. The takes, obviously, were giving Jokic a ton of heat for his shortcomings in the series against Minnesota, in which, truth be told, he did not look like his usual self. Naturally, Jokic's subpar, by his illustrious standards, performance in the postseason led to him catching flak once more for a popular anti-Joker talking point: the fact that he has never beaten a 50-win team in a playoff series.

The year Denver won the championship in 2022-23, the Nuggets defeated a 42-40 Timberwolves team in the first round, a 45-37 Phoenix Suns squad in the second round, a 43-39 Los Angeles Lakers team in the Western Conference Finals and a 44-38 Miami Heat group in the NBA Finals. According to our research back in 2024, that Nuggets title run was the easiest in modern NBA history based on opponent win percentage, as Denver's foes in the 2023 postseason had a combined win percentage of 53. 05 percent.

The only teams that faced weaker competition on their way to a championship than the '23 Nuggets (based on opponent win percentage) were the '53 Lakers, the '57 Celtics, the '56 Warriors and the '59 Celtics. In fairness to Jokic, at least with regard to that stat, in the 2019-20 COVID-shortened season, the big man did lead his Nuggets to series victories against two teams - the Utah Jazz (44-28) and Los Angeles Clippers (49-23) - who had win percentages higher than that of 50-win teams in normal years. But because the regular season was shortened by COVID-19, those two teams weren't able to reach 50 wins.

A 50-win regular season equates to a 60. 9 percent win rate. The '20 Jazz had a 61.