Coming into these NBA playoffs, the Nuggets had a lot of issues to be worried about, but clutch play wasn’t one of them. Going back several seasons, Denver has been one of the best teams in the league in crunch-time situations, largely thanks to the unstoppable two-man game they’ve developed between Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.
The clutch plays, shots, and moments that those two have provided over the years will live forever in Nuggets lore, and rightfully so. But so far in these playoffs, the clutch plays have come from another, less likely source, Aaron Gordon.
AG has been a great Nugget since arriving, and somebody who could always be relied upon late in games, but he hasn’t exactly been the guy to take the final shot of games. Yet, through just eight playoff games in 2025, Gordon already has two game-winning shots.
First, in Game 4 against the Clippers, Gordon dunked home an alley-ooop for a walk-off victory in LA that saved the Nuggets’ season. Then, in Game 1 against the Thunder, Gordon hit a three-pointer from the wing with just under 3 seconds left to steal a win in Oklahoma City.
Aaron Gordon is first player with multiple road playoff game winners
With the game-winning shot on Monday, Gordon became the first player in NBA history to make multiple game-winning shots with under 5 seconds remaining on the road in one NBA playoff run.
The league started tracking play-by-play data in the 1996-1997 season, which monitors things like time and situation. Since then, this is the first instance of this scenario, and of all players, it’s Aaron Gordon.
In the play-by-play data era (1996-97), just one player has gone on the road and hit a game-winning shot in the final 5 seconds of a game multiple times in a single playoff run:
— Jake Coyne (@TheStatSquatch) May 6, 2025
That player is Denver’s Aaron Gordon in the 2025 playoffs. pic.twitter.com/TtvZGsLkb6
This is a completely believable stat if it were about Murray or Jokic, but for Gordon to even attempt two game-winning shots in eight games is pretty remarkable. Obviously, neither one of his game-winners was by design, with the first one coming on an offensive rebound after a three-point attempt by Jokic, and the second coming in a bit of a scramble drill.
Still, he found himself in these positions with the game on the line and the ball in his hands. And Gordon has come through and then some. Whether by design or not, there’s no denying how clutch Gordon has been.
The craziest part? The Nuggets are only one game into their round two series. This could, and hopefully will, be a much longer playoff run, and there will almost certainly be more games that come down to crunch time.
As incredible as this record is for Gordon, he has a real chance to add to it and have this go down as one of the all-time individual clutch runs in NBA playoff history.