OKLAHOMA CITY — By the end of the routine, Aaron Gordon was smiling.
It started gingerly. But Gordon made shots. He tried putting weight on his injured left leg, pivoting on it. Slowly, he appeared more comfortable in his motions.
In a season-ending Game 7 loss to the Thunder, Denver’s starting power forward played through a hamstring strain that he suffered three days earlier, pushing off the start of an expected one-month recovery process.
“I couldn’t sprint,” Gordon said, laughing. “That was tough. Tough. I was trying to play a real old-man game. Yeah, any time I tried to sprint, it was gonna just probably be a lot worse. I gave it my all.”
And he gave the Nuggets eight points and 11 rebounds in defeat. Gordon said that if Denver had won and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, he would’ve been sidelined for “at least two or three games.” But he wanted to play this one, hoping he could help the team make it through the Oklahoma City series before sitting out.
“I knew the risks,” Gordon said. “Unfortunately, injuries are part of the game. So I knew the risks. But I wanted to be out there for my team.”
He suffered the left hamstring strain late in Game 6, getting it diagnosed after an MRI on Friday.
“There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to play today,” he said. “The only thing that made me doubt playing was the MRI. The MRI told me something worse than what I was feeling.”
Gordon participated in the team’s walk-through for the winner-take-all game on Saturday in Denver, but the severity of his strain had himself and the team questioning his ability to contribute significantly, if he could play at all. The decision was made collectively by Gordon and the team’s medical staff, according to interim coach David Adelman.
The Nuggets took a 21-10 lead in the first quarter before losing 125-93. Gordon emerged from the series with a gripe for the league about its scheduling setup for the playoffs.
“I would really, really appreciate it if there were a couple of days in between games in the playoffs instead of every other day,” he said. “… I understand if you do your work early and you get first seed, then you can have some time off. But I think … just two days, I think the product of the game would be a lot better. I think there would be just a better product on the floor, just to give all these professional athletes just one more day of rest. And you would see a higher level of basketball. Probably less blowouts.”
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.
Originally Published: May 18, 2025 at 12:34 PM MDT
