INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- After every game, Aaron Gordon spends 20 minutes at his locker icing a right calf injury that has hindered him all season. For one of the NBA's highest fliers, it has been a painful, frustrating nuisance. He cannot jump as high as he used to. His elite athleticism has been affected.
But Saturday evening, Gordon jumped just high enough to catch and dunk one of the most important shots of the year -- the first buzzer-beating, game-winning dunk in playoff history -- to help the Denver Nuggets beat the LA Clippers 101-99 in Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series at Intuit Dome.
"I'm just trying to clean up everything on the glass," Gordon said afterward.
The shot he caught from Nikola Jokic didn't hit the glass, or the rim, or anything else for that matter. It was an air ball, as the three-time MVP tried to fling the ball high over Clippers center Ivica Zubac's arms at the end of regulation. Jokic has hit that wild, off-balance shot so many times, it has even got a nickname: "The Sombor Shuffle."
"Joker was trying to get in his bag with the Sombor Shuffle," Gordon joked. "He's made shots like that before. ... He shot it in enough time that it gave us a chance to rebound it."
Well, barely enough time. Gordon ran off the court in celebration as soon as he dunked the ball, but game officials took several minutes to review whether he actually caught and dunked before time expired.
Jokic actually stayed on the bench, worried that Gordon might have been a fraction of a second late and the Nuggets would have to play overtime after blowing a 22-point fourth-quarter lead.
"I didn't want to have excitement and then go down," Jokic said. "So I was just like, 'Keep calm.' Because I didn't know what happened, to be honest. I thought it was close ... really close."
Finally, after a long review, officials determined that Gordon beat the clock by a tenth of a second. According to referee Zach Zarba in the pool report, the replay center official determined there was "clear and conclusive evidence that the ball was out of Gordon's hands when the red light came on to end the game."
"It has to be out of his hand when the red light is on," Zarba said. "It's not the cylinder of the rim -- it's whether it's in contact with his hand or not when that red light comes on."
The play was emblematic of how close this series between the fourth-seeded Nuggets and fifth-seeded Clippers has been. Three of the four games have been decided by three points or less.
Denver looked to be cruising heading into the fourth quarter, as Jokic scored or assisted on 26 of the Nuggets' 35 points in the third quarter to help build a 20-point lead. But L.A. stormed back in the final period with aggressive defense by Kawhi Leonard, who had two steals, and clutch outside shooting by Norman Powell.
The Clippers took a 97-96 lead on Bogdan Bogdanovic reverse layup around Jokic with 1:11 to go. Jokic tried to settle Denver down on the ensuing possession as the Intuit Dome crowd roared. He drew a foul on Zubac but then missed his first free throw. His second free throw bounced high up off the rim and back down to tie the score.
Jokic and Zubac traded baskets on the next two possessions, setting up the final sequence. The Clippers have found success with Zubac covering Jokic alone the past few games. When Zubac is able to defend Jokic one-on-one it has taken away many of Jokic's favorite passes to cutters and shooters. On this play, though, Jokic called his own number. He drove to the middle of the lane, spun back toward the 3-point line and hurled up a fallaway, off-balanced 3-pointer as Zubac and Leonard tried to contest it.
Immediately, it was clear the shot was way off.
Asked what he thought as the ball left his hand, Jokic deadpanned, "This is going to be bad."
Gordon is on the receiving end of so many of Jokic's lobs that he was able to read and time the ball perfectly, though.
"It was a nice pass," Gordon joked.
"No, it wasn't," Jokic replied.
"Those air balls are hard to defend," Gordon said. "I was just in the right place at the right time."
And because he was, the Nuggets are going home tied 2-2 in the series. Game 5 is Tuesday night.
"It's tough, but you know, I'm glad we fought," Leonard said. " We didn't lay down. Down, I think, 20 in that fourth quarter, to be able to keep fighting and rally back, and you know, it's the NBA. They made a great, great play."