The battle for the league's top individual honor looks to be a two-man race, and with a month left, the margin is razor thin.

In a battle of this NBA season’s two leading MVP candidates, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander got one up on Nikola Jokić with a huge 40-point performance to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a dominant 127-103 win over the Denver Nuggets.

One head-to-head result in early March does not, by itself, decide something as massive as which player will wind up winning the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award. It can, however, provide an opportunity to make an emphatic statement.