dunk on a Jokic miss as time expired<\/a> lifted the Nuggets past the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 4 of their first-round series.<\/p>\nGordon did much more than hit the deciding shot against the Thunder.<\/p>\n
\u201cAaron\u2019s going to be a hero again,\u201d Denver interim coach David Adelman said. \u201cBut I\u2019m also looking at 14 rebounds. I\u2019m looking at 22 points. Looking at ball-handling responsibilities, leadership. He is a Denver Nugget, man. Like, he is the soul of our team. So, cool to see him have two moments that no one will forget.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jokic became just the fourth player to have at least 40 points, 20 rebounds and five assists in a playoff game.<\/p>\n
Denver\u2019s Russell Westbrook, who started his career with the Thunder, assisted on Gordon\u2019s game-winner. It was his first playoff game in Oklahoma City as an opposing player.<\/p>\n
Jamal Murray added 21 points for the fourth-seeded Nuggets, who stole the opener after closing out a seven-game series against the Clippers on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Denver\u2019s opportunity came after Oklahoma City\u2019s Chet Holmgren missed two free throws with the Thunder leading by a point.<\/p>\n
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the other MVP finalist in the game, had 33 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists for the Thunder, who hadn\u2019t played in more than a week after sweeping the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round. Alex Caruso added 20 points, six assists and five steals. <\/p>\n
Jokic picked up three fouls during a two-minute stretch in the third quarter after committing just one foul in the first half. He stayed in the game with the Thunder leading 73-64.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets closed the gap to 90-85 by the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n
With the Thunder leading 104-95 and just under seven minutes remaining, Jokic elbowed Oklahoma City\u2019s Lu Dort in the head on a drive, and the play was reviewed. The play was ruled a flagrant 1 on Jokic \u2014 his fifth foul \u2014 and Dort made two free throws.<\/p>\n
Denver spent the rest of the game closing the gap, and Jokic never picked up the sixth foul.<\/p>\n
The Thunder helped Denver by fouling intentionally while leading, and the Nuggets took advantage by making all four free throws in the final 12.9 seconds.<\/p>\n
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said he didn\u2019t regret the strategy that ultimately kept the Nuggets close.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t go our way tonight, but it\u2019s worked out well for us in the past,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to look at it and learn from it, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s why we lost the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City led 113-102 with 4:31 remaining. The Thunder, normally one of the best closing teams in the league, fell apart against the veteran Nuggets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never felt like anybody wavered,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re going to win the game. But we all know in the NBA playoffs these games are so long. You just try to give yourself a chance. We did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Nikola Jokic showed why he\u2019s a finalist for another MVP award with his historic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[877,328,7,366,585,250,301,187,3943,762,1622,6,446,11,253,302,586,475,179,254,209,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-21046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-alex-caruso","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-chet-holmgren","12":"tag-co-state-wire","13":"tag-david-adelman","14":"tag-denver","15":"tag-denver-nuggets","16":"tag-denvernuggets","17":"tag-jamal-murray","18":"tag-mark-daigneault","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-nba-basketball","21":"tag-nba-playoffs","22":"tag-nikola-jokic","23":"tag-nuggets","24":"tag-ok-state-wire","25":"tag-oklahoma-city","26":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","27":"tag-russell-westbrook","28":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","29":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114477839621613751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}