The Denver Nuggets Just Did The Impossible…

The Denver Nuggets Just Did The Impossible…

Aaron Gordon just did it again. 7 seconds left. Westbrook 5 seconds. They’re down by one. Gordon got it. Aaron Gordon with a deep shot. Williams three quarter court. No good. If you thought Aaron Gordon’s tip dunk in the final second of the game against the Clippers was the best moment of the NBA playoffs. And this is for the win. They’re close. They’re going to Aaron Gordon and the Denver Nuggets might have just found a way to top that moment. With less than 3 minutes left in the game, the Denver Nuggets trailed the OKC Thunder by nine points. And throughout the game, it was a similar story. The Thunder held a decent lead, which the Nuggets would cut back to about five or six before OKC brought it back out to double digits. Caruso saves Fox, bangs it in. just dominating Denver from a shooting perspective, making eight more threes than Denver through the first three quarters of the game. But you know what happened? Nicola Joic happened. Jokic against Harkinstein. Jokic bullseye a three. But we need to go back a little bit further than just the final three minutes of the fourth quarter. After scoring 24 points in the first three quarters, Joic was having a solid game. Step forward, the fourth quarter. He started things off here by getting the ball at the three-point line. Russ did a good job at clearing Caruso out. And that’s just easy money for Yoke. But after that shot, OKC answered again, extending the lead to 13 points with only 6 minutes remaining. And it was this shot which gave Joic that confidence in his three ball that he would need a little bit later in the game. And over the next few minutes, Joic just asserted his dominance by getting to the free throw line. I mean, if you can’t beat them, why not join them? And that’s what happens when they can’t guard you. I mean, here he is isolated against Shay backing him down. Euro stepping around JDub and then Hardenstein coming over the top and take your pick at which one found him. Either way, they couldn’t stop him. And that was the only way they could try stopping him cuz a minute later when he got the ISO against Caruso, if you’re not going to double him and if you’re not going to fail him or do both, he’s going to put that ball in the basket. And even after this shot, it still felt like the Thunder had a comfortable gap. Well, that was until Joic did this. Jokic against Harkinstein. Yic. Bullseye. A three. That was the confidence I was talking about in his three-point shooting. And all of a sudden, a 13-point lead halfway through the quarter had evaporated. And Nicola Joic had tallied his 40th point to go along with 20 rebounds and five assists, which by the way has been done four other times in playoff history. I don’t know how many of those times it has been done against the best defense in the NBA against two sevenfooters and against a team that was guarding that player like this, but you know, just saying. But with the Nuggets still unable to get the lead over the last minute of the game, this is when OKC decided to resort to a more unethical style of basketball. Gordon, get it in for Joic. Yeah, they decided they wouldn’t even give Denver a chance. Surely that couldn’t backfire, right? I mean, it’s a simple game of maths. If we lead by three and everyone makes their free throws, there’s no way of them catching us as time inevitably runs out. Ah, about that. Second one for [Applause] homegr. And everyone will see that three-point shot and think of a number of things. What a shot. What a game. Aaron Gordon, question mark. An Aaron Gordon three-point shot. I’m here to tell everyone this is who Aaron Gordon is now. He’s still capable of making some of the most gravitydefying plays in basketball as we saw against the Clippers and as we saw when he put Cet Homegrren in a body bag during this game. Threeon two developing Gordon. Oh, it goes down. How? But he’s no longer a liability from three-point range. He’s a guy you can give the ball to in any moment and trust in him making that shot with him shooting 43% from three during the regular season. And it’s not just his three-point shooting, it’s his mid-range shooting and it’s his free throws. What people don’t remember from this game is before Chad Holgrim missed those two free throws and Aaron Gordon hit that three, it was Aaron Gordon at the free throw line. And it was Aaron Gordon who nailed two free throws to put that kind of pressure on Shet. And the reason this is so special is because if you look back to last year, there would have been zero confidence in me or anyone else watching the game that Aaron Gordon would hit both free throws. During the 2023 and 2024 season, AJ shot 63% from the line. This season, he went to 81% from the line and is now at 90% during the playoffs. It is not a fluke. Nothing about his shooting right now is a fluke. This is a result of work and work and work culminating in an incredible highlight which you can even see in the highlight. The fluidity and confidence in that shot. Zero hesitation, zero second guessing, and just a beautiful knockdown three. And these highlights bring up a bigger message for the wider NBA community. Aaron Gordon has been the Nugget’s second best player over the last two postseasons. I know Jamal Mari had his 40point game and he can reach a level which Gordon clearly cannot and they will need that but from a consistency standpoint on both ends of the floor his versatility defensively his rebounding his playmaking which gets overlooked and now his shotmaking. This is a guy who is a matchup nightmare. And another thing that is getting overlooked from this game is he not only had the game-winning three, but how about 22 points and 14 rebounds, which was the story of the game for Denver. Despite getting outshot by the Thunder, the Nuggets won this game on the boards, recording 20 more rebounds than OKC, which is crazy considering they’re a team with two sevenfooters. But there is height, and then there is girth. Oh man, the Nuggets have some girth. and AG has as much as anyone in the league. Okay, anyways, moving on. And it’s just Aaron Gordon’s timing on the board. It’s like here where Joic gets in the paint and with Hardenstein drawn out, he knows there’s an opportunity for him to crash the glass, which he does immediately off the miss, tipping it in and the rebounding all across the board. Obviously, Nicola Joic had 22 rebounds and was an absolute monster, but seven offensive rebounds for Aaron Gordon, double-digit rebounds for Christian Brown. This is who the Denver Nuggets have to be if they’re going to beat a team like the OKC Thunder. The Thunder are a team with more talent. Let’s just be honest. But that doesn’t mean you can’t dominate them physically. And it starts with Nicola Joic, but then it is Aaron Gordon. It is Christian Brown. And another guy who brought the physicality as he does every single night and has done all throughout the season and all throughout these playoffs is Russell Westbrook. You want to talk about rebounding? How about having your six man coming off the bench being one of the best rebounders in NBA history at his position? And Russell Westbrook did everything in this game. You can look at the box score and see the 17 points. That is fantastic. But it’s plays like this which just deserve all of the credit in the world. Shay is isolated against Brown. Russ helps over to double, forcing him to pass. Jookic rushes at JDub. But watch Russ rotate back to protect the rim. Those are the kind of plays that make a difference. Those are the kind of plays that he made all throughout the Clippers series. I mean, finishing game seven with five steals, a 15 five and five game. Let me emphasize off the bench on a vet minimum contract after people called him washed. It’s just the effort plays from Russ. Just like here again where he digs in on Shay to force the pass, gets back out to Jaylen Williams forcing another pass and then in the Hardenstein miss, look at him sky for the rebound before getting fouled by Caruso and going to the line. I feel like it’s hard to not have that kind of energy all across the board when your 36-year-old bench point guard is bringing that energy every single play. And he scored 17 points to go along with this, as I said, against the best defense in the NBA. And he’s now averaging 17 4 and 1/2 boards and 3 and 1/2 assists on 64% true shooting over his last four playoff games. Do you realize how insane that is off the bench? And then you factor in the defense which he’s giving this team. They are not in the second round without Russ. And they are definitely not up one zero without Russ. And to think people were calling him and the Nuggets out just a few weeks ago, insanity. Now, if you want to hear about what I have to say about Russell Westbrook in more depth, check out this video I made just a few days ago. Consider subscribing for more content like this. Dropping a like on the video would be cool. Have a great day. Bye.

He did it again…
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