{"id":2186,"date":"2025-04-27T18:02:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T18:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/2186\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T18:02:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T18:02:15","slug":"inside-aaron-gordons-buzzer-beater-dunk-for-nuggets-vs-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/2186\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Aaron Gordon’s buzzer-beater dunk for Nuggets vs. Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 Aaron Gordon<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

At Archbishop Mitty<\/a> in the Bay Area, the varsity team believed in an unofficial doctrine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were ever in trouble \u2014 if I\u2019m on the wing and I\u2019m getting doubled \u2014 the failsafe is just: Throw it in the air,\u201d Brandon Abajelo said, \u201cand Aaron will go get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One decade later, Gordon\u2019s teammates still abide by that code. Even the consensus best basketball player in the world.<\/p>\n

As Nikola Jokic backed himself into a proverbial corner Saturday by dribbling away from the basket, the Nuggets\u2019 season was sinking into deep trouble. They had coughed up a 22-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 Game 4 of a first-round series they already trailed 2-1 to the Clippers.<\/p>\n

Jokic hoisted a desperate shot \u2014 his signature \u201cSombor Shuffle\u201d fade-away \u2014 thinking to himself, \u201cthis is going to be bad.\u201d He was resigned to an overtime fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, to be honest, I didn\u2019t want to give them enough time to shoot the ball,\u201d he said. \u201cSo in my mind, I just wanted to wait (until) the last second and just jack it. So I did a couple dribbles. And that was a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jokic has a failsafe for his mistakes. Throw it in the air. Gordon will go get it.<\/p>\n

With the first walk-off dunk in NBA playoff history<\/a>, Gordon might\u2019ve saved the Nuggets\u2019 season. For a few days at least, he instilled new hope and fended off the existential dread of a 3-1 series deficit. All he needed to do was correct the crooked parabola of Jokic\u2019s shot. Elevating and snatching the ball above the rim, Denver\u2019s power forward transformed an airball into a glorious rainbow. He plunked it in the pot of gold at the buzzer.<\/p>\n

Nuggets 101, Clippers 99.<\/p>\n

\u201cAG was in the right spot,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cLike he always is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hands before the buzzer, or else the shot doesn\u2019t count. In this unusual case, Gordon\u2019s fingertips were attached when the ball was almost halfway through the net.<\/p>\n

The replay-review process at Intuit Dome was its own spectacle. 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were debating back and forth about it,\u201d Peyton Watson told The Denver Post.<\/p>\n

Confidence on the Denver sideline depended on the individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was good,\u201d Watson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the game was over,\u201d Gordon said, \u201cso I was just trying to get off the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of doubt,\u201d Michael Porter Jr. said with a laugh. \u201cIt was like somewhere between the 0.1 (seconds) and 0.0 range.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was walking off the court like, \u2018I don\u2019t think so,’\u201d Christian Braun said, chalking it up to his tendency to assume the worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to have excitement and then go down,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cI thought that it was close, but it was really, really close.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the Nuggets do business in the playoffs these days. Twice last year, they needed dramatic shots from Jamal Murray to break the Lakers\u2019 hearts. They suffered a 20-point collapse in a wild Game 7 loss to Minnesota. Their two wins in this series have been decided in overtime or at the buzzer. That 22-point lead was too simple.<\/p>\n

Gordon has a heroic playoff moment worthy of his importance to Denver now. And it was the most fitting type of play \u2014 dirty work in the dunker position. He once claimed to have the \u201cbest hands in the business<\/a>.\u201d Mostly, they serve Jokic\u2019s fondness for trying adventurous no-look passes at close proximity. But this time, Gordon bailed out an unpredictable heave that had zero intention of being an assist.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best things about him was the way he gets rebounds,\u201d Gordon\u2019s high school coach, Tim Kennedy, remembered. \u201cHis ability just to get a feel for where the ball is coming and get his hands on it. That competitive nature of his.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s locker room was buzzing in the afterglow of the dunk. The next playoff game was on the television in the middle of the room. At halftime, ESPN relived the buzzer-beater from every conceivable camera angle. A small handful of Nuggets crowded around, teasing Gordon with fake amazement that he was on TV. Gordon remained seated at his stall across the room. He responded with a bashful smile.<\/p>\n

His final stat line in Game 4 was productive but fairly modest, at least compared to the box-score contributions of Jokic and a couple of other starters \u2014 14 points, six rebounds and five assists.<\/p>\n

If those numbers don\u2019t exactly jump off the page, maybe that\u2019s the most fitting aspect of an instant classic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAaron doesn\u2019t care if it\u2019s 12, 8 and 4 \u2026 as long as we win,\u201d said Nuggets interim coach David Adelman, who also coached Gordon in Orlando. \u201cAnd some nights, it\u2019s 22, 12 and 6. If we lose, he doesn\u2019t care. He wants to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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 always has been, since he got to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally Published: April 27, 2025 at 7:50 AM MDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 Aaron Gordon was a high school basketball get-out-of-jail-free card. His athleticism was stress medicine for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[877,7,561,765,250,301,187,766,165,764,252,6,11,253,302,1543,1146,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-2186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-christian-braun","11":"tag-colorado","12":"tag-david-adelman","13":"tag-denver","14":"tag-denver-nuggets","15":"tag-front-range","16":"tag-latest-headlines","17":"tag-michael-porter","18":"tag-more-nuggets-news","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-nba-playoffs","21":"tag-nikola-jokic","22":"tag-nuggets","23":"tag-nuggets-highlights","24":"tag-peyton-watson","25":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114411244310457255","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","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=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}