Concern for Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon ‘high’ for Game 7, David Adelman says, after hamstring injury
It was a totally inconsequential sequence in the blink of an eye in a encounter already won Alex Caruso the Thunder s Chihuahua yapping up the Nuggets trees pestered Aaron Gordon in search of a desperation turnover The ball squibbed loose Gordon stuck his foot out at it And yet a kicked-ball violation in the final minutes of Denver s Championship win could make or break Encounter because their closer came up grabbing at his left hamstring Gordon postgame didn t quite know what happened What happened externally is the Nuggets forward appeared to barely be able to run He hobbled up the floor for a couple possessions until David Adelman subbed him for Peyton Watson seconds of clock later At this point I have no idea Adelman revealed postgame when petitioned about concern level for Gordon s injury It would be high obviously Aaron is one of our guys he s the reason why we ve won games and won series and have a banner hanging up in there Concern for Aaron is so high the Nuggets head coach finished slightly later in a response He s played through a lot through this whole season Indeed Gordon s - has been an emotional slingshot between physical highs and lows a page-turning shooting breakout followed by nagging injury followed by moments of franchise heroism He strained his right calf early in November He returned in December He strained the calf again on Christmas He ramped back up in January before spraining his ankle and missing more time in March Even his crunch-time playoff endeavors have been propelled by legs still nagging with pain A limited postgame comments in the Nuggets locker room left neither optimism nor despair Gordon certainly didn t shrug off the tweak We ll see Gordon noted when required how he felt about Championship See how I feel the coming day morning Related Articles PHOTOS Denver Nuggets top OKC Thunder - in Championship of second-round NBA Playoffs series Renck Nuggets respond to desperation like champions force Challenge at OKC Nuggets-Thunder Event -pointers Julian Strawther plunges the dagger Christian Braun makes his circumstance Jamal Murray plays sick and the Nuggets force Match with OKC Thunder Nuggets Jamal Murray available for Contest vs Thunder despite illness His absence would leave Denver without a pivotal piece in this Oklahoma City series Gordon has frequently run off attempts from Thunder second banana Jalen Williams who s struggled mightily in shooting from the floor the last three games There is a saving grace however from the scheduling gods of the NBA After playing really hard games on back-to-back days for the entirety of the Thunder series as Nikola Jokic put it postgame Denver has two days of rest before playing Encounter in Oklahoma City on Sunday Adelman breathed a verbal sigh of relief at the extended break postgame driving the point home This series has been a marathon The extra day could boost Gordon s chances of availability for Event It should also provide a slight reprieve for an ailing Michael Porter Jr and sick Jamal Murray who Adelman disclosed didn t want to get the ball multiple times on a couple of possessions because he was so gassed The guys in there Adelman reported postgame looked like they were happier that they have the next day off than they were going to a Challenge Want more Nuggets news Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis
