What Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic told Aaron Gordon about playing injured in Game 7…
Nikola Jokic wanted Aaron Gordon to play it safe amid the looming Game 7 between the Nuggets and the Thunder on Sunday.
Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon braved a lower-body injury and forced his body to play in the all-important Game 7 showdown against the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road on Sunday. However, Gordon’s courageous move went for naught, as Denver ended up getting lit up in a 125-121 loss at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
All eyes were on Gordon heading into Game 7. As one of the most important players for the Nuggets, Gordon’s status was a major talking point before Sunday’s contest. But if it was up to three-time NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic, Gordon should have just made the careful decision to sit out rather than risk his body from aggravating his hamstring injury.
“I told him not to play,” Jokic said about Gordon during the postgame press conference after the loss to Oklahoma City. “You can injure yourself even worse. You can see that he was struggling, hard to move, this and that. But he went out there to fight with us. We can just appreciate it.”
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Despite Gordon not being at his top form, the former Arizona Wildcats star still generated eight points on 2-for-4 shooting from the field and, more impressively, grabbed 11 rebounds in 25 minutes.
But he could have done more in the contest if he had been healthy. As for Jokic, he was not dealing with an injury, but struggled to find his rhythm against the Thunder’s tenacious defense. The Serbian scored 20 points on 5-for-9 shooting to go with nine rebounds and seven assists while turning the ball over five times. Jokic averaged 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game in the 2024-25 NBA regular season.
An early vacation for the Nuggets, however, means more time for Gordon to recover from his injury, which doesn’t seem serious enough to cause long-term concern for Denver.
Gordon concluded the 2024-25 NBA campaign with averages of 14.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists through 51 games. In the 2025 playoffs, he averaged 16.2 points, 7.6 boards and 2.7 dimes across 14 games.
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