The NBA's top assist duos for 2025-26

Diving into the league's best two-man games, including some surprising names at the top

Something I like to do throughout the year is glance at PBP Stats’ assist combination table. It displays the league’s most prolific two-man games, the duos that opposing coaches spend hours trying to stop.

This year, there are some unexpected names near the top of the list. As of this writing, through games played on March 4th, 2026, 32 pairings had connected on at least 70 assists. Let’s peek at the top dozen, sorted by assists per game.

1) Tyrese Maxey → Joel Embiid, 2.90 assists/game (90 total)

Embiid was the play finisher for the top pairing when I did this exercise halfway through the 2022-2023 season, too, although that was with ol’ Jimmy Harden slinging the rock. That year, Harden led the league in assists, and he and Embiid connected a whopping 5.3 times per game. That’s bonkers! Maxey and Embiid are barely doing half of that!

We might not see a connection quite that strong ever again, as the league swings away from heliocentric pick-and-roll-dominant attacks in favor of more egalitarian drive-and-kick and motion-based offenses. We certainly don’t see it this year.

But I don’t want to discredit how surprisingly successful the Maxey/Embiid pairing has been. Maxey is setting career-highs in assist rate and assists per game, while Embiid’s physical issues haven’t hampered him much as a scorer inside the arc (at least, compared to how he’s struggled on defense). Lineups with both Maxey and Embiid have scored an astonishing 122.7 points per 100 possessions, in the 94th percentile.

What’s even more interesting is that PBP Stats pegs exactly half of these assists as being midrangers, the highest rate of any of the 12 groups we’ll be talking about today. Embiid’s midrange jumper has long been one of the league’s deadliest, and he’s relying upon it more frequently than ever (a career-high 28% of his shots are long middies). Watch this play:

Maxey puts so much pressure on teams with his speed that he frequently draws two defenders, opening up passing lanes to his partner. The Pacers actually defend this okay, forcing Maxey to pass a bit behind Embiid so that Tony Bradley has enough time to recover back to Embiid. The big man hits a ridiculous one-footed fadeaway anyway. (Watch teammate Kelly Oubre’s exasperated hand flip in the corner: I’m open, I’m open… ugh, fine, good shot, I guess).

Facing a tandem like Maxey and Embiid, defenses feel a similar resignation to their fate.

2) Jamal Murray → Nikola Jokic, 2.82 assists per game (127 total, most in the NBA)

8) Nikola Jokic → Jamal Murray, 2.24 assists per game (101 total)

You know it, you love it, you’ve seen it a million times. The Jamal Murray/Nikola Jokic two-man game has been the most unstoppable and versatile force in the Association for years now, and they snag two of the top eight spots. Jokic is perhaps the greatest passer in league history, while Murray and Jokic are both rugged screeners and difficult shot makers.