The second time in less than 2 weeks, Aaron Gordon transformed into a hero for Nikola Jokic collective and his teammates, helping Denver Nuggets defeat Thunder at OKC in Game 1.
Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander may be the focal point in the competition between Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets, Western semi-finals NBA Playoffs 2025.
Aaron Gordon, who once rescued Denver in the series with La Clippers with the game-Winner Buzzer-Beater, today continued to have the second game-Winner in Playoffs 2025.
After two sliding punishments from Chet Holmgren on the OKC side, the ball reached Christian Braun’s hand and Russell Westbrook and finally stopped at Aaron Gordon’s hands.
Despite being only 1 point, Gordon decided to launch 3 successful points, raising the score to 121-119 when the fourth half was only 2.8 seconds. This is also the final result of the game 1 when the lucky throw of Jalen Williams then did not bring the score.
This is the second game-Winner of Aaron Gordon at NBA Playoffs 2025. In the first round when confronting La Clippers, Gordon made the first-winner Buzzer-Beater game basket in playoffs history, bringing an important victory for nugugets at game 4.
Today he became a hero. And not only with 3 game-Winner scores, Aaron Gordon shone the whole match with Double-Double 22 points with 14 rebounds
“Aaron is the soul of this team. That’s what has existed from past to present,” said the temporary coach David Adelman. “It is great to have two special moments in this year’s playoffs so that the whole world knows how important he is to us.”
Aaron Gordon’s game-Winner helps Denver to complete the unbelievable backwards right on the yard of OKC. They were led from the beginning of the second half until the last seconds.
The gap is still in 13 points in the middle of the 4th and 9 points when the last half is about 3 minutes. But Denver Nuggets shows his stubbornness and tenacious fighting spirit, and Oklahoma City Thunder is somewhat subjective and leads to confusion when he saw the opponent rising too strong.
April 15 is the chain that Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets collective used to finish OKC.
Back to the most anticipated match-up series in the series, Nikola Jokic had a “terrible” match with 42 points, took 22 rebounds and had 6 more assists, 2 blocks and 1 steal.
Jokic’s minus point is to involve 7 Turnovers in the whole match, but everything has been erased by a series of clutch situations at the end of the fourth half, including 3 points that shorten the score to 115-116.
Jokic’s counterweight is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander near the Triple-Double with 33 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists. Next to Shai is Alex Caruso with 20 points, 6 assists and 5 steals.
But that is not enough, especially on the day of the competition lacks the feeling of Jalen Williams, choosing to score the second point on the OKC side. Jalen today only scored 16 points with 5-20 FG (2-9 3pt).
The two teams will have a day to rest, then encounter at Game 2 taking place at 8:30 am on Thursday, May 8 is still at Paycom Center, the home yard of Oklahoma City Thunder.
