Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokic’s failsafe, is now a Nuggets playoff hero
INGLEWOOD Calif Aaron Gordon was a high school basketball get-out-of-jail-free card His athleticism was stress medicine for trapped teammates His dexterity a mulligan for inaccurate passes At Archbishop Mitty in the Bay Area the unit deduced in an unofficial doctrine If you were ever in trouble if I m on the wing and I m getting doubled the failsafe is just Throw it in the air Brandon Abajelo revealed and Aaron will go get it One decade later Gordon s teammates still abide by that code Even the consensus best basketball competitor in the world As Nikola Jokic backed himself into a proverbial corner Saturday by dribbling away from the basket the Nuggets season was sinking into deep trouble They had coughed up a -point lead in the fourth quarter Their legs were cooked like the stuffed chicken nuggets being used as props to heckle them at Intuit Dome Overtime almost certainly would mean defeat in Challenge of a first-round series they already trailed - to the Clippers Jokic hoisted a desperate shot his signature Sombor Shuffle fade-away thinking to himself this is going to be bad He was resigned to an overtime fate I mean to be honest I didn t want to give them enough time to shoot the ball he stated So in my mind I just longed to wait until the last second and just jack it So I did a couple dribbles And that was a mistake But Jokic has a failsafe for his mistakes Throw it in the air Gordon will go get it With the first walk-off dunk in NBA playoff history Gordon might ve saved the Nuggets season For a sparse days at least he instilled new hope and fended off the existential dread of a - series deficit All he needed to do was correct the crooked parabola of Jokic s shot Elevating and snatching the ball above the rim Denver s power forward transformed an airball into a glorious rainbow He plunked it in the pot of gold at the buzzer Nuggets Clippers AG was in the right spot Jokic explained Like he unfailingly is But did he arrive there too late While Gordon navigated through chest bumps and embraces from teammates on an ecstatic beeline toward the locker room scrutiny was already underway By rule the ball must be fully out of the shooter s hands before the buzzer for a shot to count In this unique affair Gordon s fingertips were attached when the ball was almost halfway through the net The replay-review process at Intuit Dome was its own roller coaster Every angle seemed to reveal a new truth and elicit a different reaction Nuggets and Clippers players gazed up at the jumbotron together and tried to litigate the nanoseconds We were debating back and forth about it Peyton Watson recounted The Denver Post Confidence on the Denver sideline depended on the individual I knew it was good Watson disclosed I thought the meeting was over Gordon noted so I was just trying to get off the court A lot of doubt Michael Porter Jr stated with a laugh It was like somewhere between the seconds and range I was walking off the court like I don t think so ' Christian Braun explained chalking it up to his personal tendency to assume the worst I didn t want to have excitement and then go down Jokic noted I thought that it was close but it was really really close That s how the Nuggets do business in the playoffs these days Twice last year they needed dramatic shots from Jamal Murray to break the Lakers hearts They suffered a -point collapse in a wild Contest loss to Minnesota Their two wins in this series have been decided in overtime or at the buzzer That -point lead was too simple Gordon has a heroic playoff moment worthy of his importance to Denver now And it was the bulk fitting type of play dirty work in the dunker position He once claimed to have the best hands in the business Mostly they serve Jokic s fondness for trying adventurous no-look passes at close proximity But this time Gordon bailed out a hoist that had zero intentions of being an assist One of the best things about him was the way he gets rebounds Gordon s high school coach Tim Kennedy remembered His ability just to get a feel for where the ball is coming and get his hands on it That competitive nature of his Gordon s final stat line in Contest was productive but fairly innocuous at least compared to Denver s other starters He compiled points six rebounds and five assists If those numbers don t exactly jump off the page maybe that s certainly the the bulk fitting aspect of an instant classic Aaron doesn t care if it s and as long as we win announced Nuggets interim coach David Adelman who also coached Gordon in Orlando And particular nights it s and If we lose he doesn t care He wants to win There are certain people in our league that I would define as championship pieces I think we say that too much He is one of those people He is the definition of that and he perpetually has been since he got to us
