Aaron Gordon didn’t miss after the game, either.
“What was it like being the worst player on the floor?” a reporter asked Nikola Jokic following the MVP’s rare off-night Friday against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Gordon, dressing at his locker stall about four feet behind the Joker’s media scrum, suddenly perked up.
It was meant to be funny. Cute. Ironic, even.
Only AG wasn’t laughing.
“He was not the worst player on the floor,” the Nuggets forward said with an incredulous whisper. “What kind of question …”
Got a better one.
“The name Robert Horry mean anything to you?” I asked AG after a wild, 113-104 overtime win over the Thunder sent Denver into Sunday’s Game 4 with a 2-1 series lead.
“You mean Big Shot Bob?” Gordon replied with a smile.
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
“He needs a nickname like that,” a compatriot suggested. “Something that rhymes.”
Captain Clutch?
AG3?
“I’ll let y’all figure that one out,” Gordon chuckled.
The right calf hurts. The heart aches. The shot is poetry. The timing is Hollywood. Gordon saved the Nuggets’ bacon again late Friday night at Ball Arena, sinking his third game-tying or game-winning shot of this year’s NBA Playoffs.
With 27 seconds left and Denver down 102-99 in a slugfest — and slugging it out is the Nuggets’ best path to moving on — Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed a jumper from 21 feet out. Jamal Murray corralled the defensive rebound and led a break the other way.
The Blue Arrow zipped past the timeline, slowing up until help arrived. Gordon trailed to Murray’s right, then split the paint with a wheel route to his left, unguarded with every step. Murray spotted him in the corner.
By the time OKC’s lanky Chet Holmgren realized he was the closest man and the last hope, it was too late. AG had done the Thunder dirty off a scramble for the second time in three games.
“How many hours have you practiced that corner three?” I asked Gordon later.
“A lot,” Gordon said. Another smile. “It’s a lot.”
The Nuggets have made bigger trades. But the March 2021 deal that brought Gordon from Orlando, in hindsight, might turn out to be the very best.
Every moment in Denver, Gordon has risen to meet. Every challenge, he’s faced head-on. Every role, he’s embraced.
Gordon flew in from Florida as a high-flying, high-volume scorer. Those shots were already spoken for here.
When the team needed a bruiser, he got stronger. When they needed a defensive stopper, he studied film. When they needed a 3-point threat, having let Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walk, he went back to his home gym inside that warehouse of his. He fired shot after shot, sanding off the rough edges and that hitch in his release.
“He’s a really good player, first of all,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said of Gordon. “So I don’t think he’s punching above his weight. This is who he is. He’s been an incredible piece of their team for a long period of time, and he’s shown up in these games.
“(Gordon) made some big, big plays, big shots (Friday). So, we tip our hat to him. But, I thought, generally, we did a good job on his driving (in Game 3). We’ll take a look at it, but … we’ve got to rise to the challenge.”
Without Gordon, the Nuggets right now are propping up the local economy in Cancun and the stables in Sombor.
“Do people appreciate the sweat,” I asked Gordon, “that goes into changing your game, evolving it?”
“Yeah, it takes a lot of work. But the reward is itself,” the forward replied. “I don’t really care about other people praising (it) or not. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Through seven playoff games this spring, AG’s shot 56% from the floor (15 of 27) and 50% from beyond the arc (seven of 14) in the fourth quarter or OT while the game’s been within 15 points or closer.
“What’s your level of confidence right now?” a reporter asked.
“High,” Gordon said.
“Does the basket look … bigger?”
A nod.
“Mm-hmm.”
The Nuggets have about five gears on a good night. OKC can shift up to about eight. Denver isn’t deep enough, or pretty enough, to smoke a 68-win team.
Still, poise wins late. Scars get you over the line. Four ugly wins beat three blowout losses. If it comes to that.
“There’s continuity in it. We’ve been there,” Gordon explained. “We’ve done it at the highest level. We’ve got great players on this team. There’s a trust.”
There’s a vibe. Get the Thunder in the clinch, they’ll clench.
“What (Gordon has) done this postseason has been unbelievable for us,” super sub Peyton Watson noted. “He’s won us games, and we need everything that we can get, so I’m just super happy for AG overall, what he’s been through, and the person that he is, and the teammate that he is. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy.”
A guy who’s helping to raise his nephews, Brody and Zayne, the sons of his late brother, Drew, who passed away last spring at a too-young 33.
“I know Drew’s with me,” Gordon said. “I’ve got his nephews. I’m just trying to be an example for them.”
Only he turned into an example for us all. When you’re flying in this kind of zone, you never, ever want to leave. The series MVP so far wears 32 for Drew, a man alone on the wing with angels at his back. And daggers in his eyes.
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