The vibes are high in Denver after the Nuggets pulled out a miraculous Game 4 win in LA at the buzzer. Aaron Gordon put back Nikola Jokic’s miss, snatching it out of mid-air and dunking the ball home, literally milliseconds before the final buzzer sounded to give the Nuggets a 101-99 victory and even the series at 2-2.
The ending was absolutely incredible. It is a moment that will live in Nuggets lore forever and a highlight that will be replayed time and again. The Nuggets now head back to Ball Arena with home-court advantage in a best-of-three series and the best player alive in their corner; they should be feeling pretty good.
But Gordon’s incredible buzzer-beater masked the disaster that played out for the previous 12 minutes and almost went down as one of the worst moments in Nuggets’ franchise history. The Nuggets blew a 22-point 4th quarter lead and actually trailed briefly before the clutch heroics by Jokic, Gordon, and others.
The team ran out of gas, and when the Clippers ramped up the pressure, the Nuggets couldn’t get anything going outside of Jokic. There was nowhere for David Adelman to turn as he ended up playing all five of his starters 42+ minutes, the first time that has happened in a playoff game since 1997.
Nuggets don’t have the talent & depth to support Jokic
And ultimately, as this game was slipping away, it was impossible not to blame Calvin Booth for the product on the floor. Building a team around Jokic should be easy, but since winning the title in 2023, the team has made the wrong move at every turn. The obvious moves were losing Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, but that’s just the beginning.
Booth gave guaranteed contracts to Jalen Pickett and Hunter Tyson for no clear reason. He signed Reggie Jackson, then paid picks to dump him. He wasted a TPE on Dario Saric. He put way too much stock in the players he drafted outside of the lottery, like Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, and Zeke Nnaji.
He made one misstep after another, and the result is a weak roster despite having the best player in the league. Jamal Murray isn’t good enough to be a second star in 2025, but that’s his role on this team. Michael Porter Jr. shouldn’t be making a max contract and shouldn’t be the third option on a title contender, but that’s his reality.
Russell Westbrook shouldn’t be playing 30 minutes a game and closing in the playoffs, but he is. Adelman shouldn’t be playing his starters 42+ minutes, but what do you want him to do? He got 2 points from Watson in 12 minutes, a donut from Pickett in 6 minutes, 2 points from the ancient DeAndre Jordan in 4 minutes, and nothing at all from Vlatko Cancar in 2 minutes.
That shouldn’t be the bench unit for a playoff team, but that’s where the Nuggets are, and that’s the team Calvin Booth created. It’s incredible that they’re tied at 2-2, and it’s a testament to Jokic, because watching this roster in a playoff setting, it’s shocking that Booth lasted as long as he did.