Aaron Gordon shakes down the Thunder again

His shots have brought Denver to a 2-1 lead over Oklahoma City, the NBA's winningest team.

Aaron Gordon

Oklahoma City headed into the lair of Batman-villains and braced itself for The Joker. Again, it learned that another Denver Nugget would be the Bane of its existence.

Aaron Gordon was so open in the corner that you wondered if social distancing had returned. The 3-pointer was Denver’s second basket in the final 7:45 of the fourth quarter, but it created overtime, and the Nuggets quickly went up five with a three from Michael Porter Jr. The final was 113-104, and Denver leads Oklahoma City in the Western Conference semifinals, 2-1, even though the Thunder leads the aggregate score by 32 points. The Thunder, which won a league-high 68 regular-season games, also led the NBA in point differential, setting a record with 12.7. That also means it led the NBA in garbage time. It’s too early for conclusions, but we will discover if Oklahoma City can handle Minutes 45 through 48 the way it rampages through the first 44.

This win was not solely engineered by Nikola Jokic. In fact, Jokic missed all 10 of his 3-point shots, had eight turnovers and shot 8 for 23 overall. “Basically I was the worst player on the court,” Jokic said. When that happens, the burden shifts to the most put-upon lineup in the NBA. Gordon, Porter and Jamal Murray have to scorch the 3-point line, and they combined to go 11 for 17. Murray scored 27, Gordon 27 for 22 and Porter 21. The Nuggets outscored Oklahoma City by 21 from the 3-point line, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who will be the MVP if Jokic isn’t, had a rocky 7 for 22 game and scored 18, 14.7 below his average.

Then there was Russell Westbrook, coming off the bench at his usual 78 rpm pace and scoring eight points with no turnovers. In Game 1 of this series, Westbrook was the middle man on Denver’s final rush, and he passed perfectly to Gordon, who banged the 3-pointer that brought victory. You don’t hear much win-one-for-Russ talk, but he’s 36 now, and Denver is his fifth team since his Oklahoma City run ended in 2019. Until this season his teams had lost four consecutive playoff series. But in this bench role, Westbrook intensifies the game and seems to know that the basketball belongs in better hands. Michael Malone helped turn him into an asset, but general manager Calvin Booth wanted the coach to play younger subs. The disagreement got so chilly that team president Josh Kroenke fired both of them, and promoted David Adelman to the top coaching chair on April 8.

Malone was in his 10th season. There’s a change-the-channel theory, popular among team executives, that says players develop hearing loss when chained to the same coach too long. Malone’s raw approach helped bring a championship in 2022, but he was increasingly agitated by the situation, and just before he was fired he said the Nuggets’ answers was right there on tape, “although I know they won’t watch it.” By removing the inter-office quarrels, the Nuggets cleared the table, and Denver survived a tough series with the Clippers, who were a 7th-game no-show, as usual. The most memorable play of that series came at the end of Game 4 in Los Angeles, when the Nuggets, having blown a 20-point lead, got the ball to Jokic at the end. Jokic’s shot was woefully short — “I knew it was going to be bad,” he said — but Gordon beat everyone to the rim, snatched it and dunked it, a breath before the buzzer. Denver tied the series, and home court held for the rest of it.

Denver has thus won six playoff games this spring and Gordon’s shots have been essential in three of them. He has forced the basketball world to remember that he was a first-overall draft pick from Arizona, was asked to carry a struggling Orlando franchise, and that he finally got traded to the Nuggets for shooting guard Gary Harris, R.J. Hampton and a first-round pick. With that, the Nuggets practically doubled their verticality, and Murray was freed up to take the big perimeter shots. What no one anticipated was that Gordon would work himself into becoming a 43 percent 3-point shooter himself. He also sharpened his defense to the point that he could hang with Kawhi Leonard in the Clipper series.

Gordon has enriched the franchise and the city. According to Bennett Durando in the Denver Post, Gordon bought Jokic a saddle with “MVP” and the Serbian flag on it, recognizing Jokic’s horse-owning avocation. He has adjusted his contract to make it easier for the Nuggets to add talent. He was in China when teammate Christian Braun sent a FaceTime notification, asking for a favor. Braun’s aunt was in her final hours, and Gordon was her favorite player. So Gordon got up in the middle of the night, talked to her for 10 minutes and showed her his newest tattoo.

Aaron’s sister Elise played at Harvard and his dad Ed was a Patriots’ tight end for a brief time. His brother Drew was a well-advertised player who signed with UCLA, transferred to New Mexico and then went on a world tour, playing professionally in Italy, France, Serbia, Japan and Russia. He was playing in Ukraine when the Russians invaded. Drew retired and moved to Oregon, where he and Elise launched a sports management company, and he was managing an AAU program. He and his wife had three children. Almost a year ago, Drew was driving a 3-wheeler in a rural area of Clackamas County when he hit an oncoming car. He was 33.

That’s when Aaron retreated to the basketball court inside his house and began getting shots up, as if each swish would bring spiritual relief..

“Aaron’s not the person he is without Drew,” said Tim Kennedy, who coached the Gordons at Archbishop Mitty. “Drew paved the way for him, dealing with all kinds of situations. Aaron was blessed to have that.”

The Nuggets used intelligent design to put this club together, but they were also blessed to have so many rich personalities who, over the seasons, have merged in the right ways. They’ve played the long game. Now they’re making the Thunder play one, too.