In the first game of the finals, the Nuggets started by choosing “extraordinary victory”. Michael Malone arranged that Aron Gordon, who was heavily emptied by the Lakers, played the main attack point. As a result, Gordon scored 12 points in a single 8-shot 6 in a crazy attack basket, taking his height, the advantage of sports ability has been brought into full play.
Originally, Gordon was the “anti-super star armor” prepared by the Nuggets for a group of big stars in the front line. In the first game of the finals, Gordon played the pioneer in the siege, winning 16 points in 7 out of 10 shots, 6 backboard, the output is more than his opposite Jimmy Butler.
How did the Nuggets get such a useful front-line commander?
Speaking of which, Gordon and jokiki and nuggets are quite predestined. In 2013, Gordon, who had just finished his high school career at that time, went to the U19 World Championship on behalf of the American youth team. He defeated Gordon and jokiki in Serbia World War I from 82 to 68 in the United States. Since then, Gordon has known jokiki. In Gordon’s impression, jokki at that time played the pure center, which did not touch the match center. In a match, his assists were zero.
In 2014, Gordon entered the NBA as the No. 4 show, while yokiki was only the No. 41 show in the same year. After being selected, he was exiled to the overseas league for one year and did not enter the NBA until 2015. Gordon’s starting point is higher than jokiki. He scored 17.6 points and 7.9 rebounds in the 2017-18 season. The data seems good, but its development is not smooth. Gordon has a lot of common problems of “no three or four” in frontal line player. He is 2 meters tall and 03 meters tall, because he is unable to pass the attack technology and projection technology with the ball, playing the third and fourth positions has defects. Gordon’s data seems comprehensive, but the efficiency is very low, not as the core attacker’s material.
In the six and a half years of magic, Gordon played in the third and fourth positions, but the effect was not ideal. In addition, due to frequent changes in magic and unclear management plans for future development, Gordon filed a transaction application in the 2020-21 season.
As for the situation at that time, Gordon made a wonderful analogy: “I feel like one foot stepping on the brake and one foot stepping on the accelerator. I feel that I need to change. I have already paid all, but I don’t know if the Magic owner is trying to make it one place.”
At that time, the Nuggets had reached a crossroads. In the 2020 Western final, facing the Lakers’ three-high front court, the Nuggets height and athletic ability fell completely. Gerami-Grant left during the off-season. Milsap, who was originally a short forward, was one year older. The Nuggets urgently needed to upgrade the front line. Harrison-Barnes and Gordon entered the Nuggets vision.
Before the transaction deadline in 2021, barsetis (assistant general manager of the Nuggets now), then vice president of the Nuggets data analysis department, made a detailed analysis report on Gordon. The data showed that, gordon is the perfect target for the Nuggets to stab window paper on that floor.
Balsettis explained: “We are looking for players who can defend against LeBlanc-James and Luca-donchic. We have some data indicators for the team to use inside, among all the recruiting targets, Gordon is the best defender. He is one of the players with the best defensive effect when defending the big names such as James and donchic.”
We don’t know what the data indicators of nuggets are for internal use, but public data show that Gordon limited the hit rate of donchip to 34.8 in the 2019-20 season, limit the hit rate of James to 30 percent, suppress the hit rate of Leonard to 40 percent, and adtokunbo to 42.3 percent.
Gordon is 2 meters tall and weighs 107 kilograms. He is a better choice than Grant and Milsap for sports talent explosion. Balcetis lamented that the Nuggets needed a player like Gordon too much. He was the puzzle that Nuggets lacked. On March 26, 2021, the Nuggets completed the transaction in exchange for Gordon.
After Gordon joined the Nuggets, he needs to transform to the direction of no ball + defensive elite, which is equivalent to the weakening of the role. The most difficult thing for the sober is to face himself. Gordon faced his own limitations and accepted the arrangement of the Nuggets. He changed from a more attack line with the ball to a no-ball attacker, in particular, it reduced those crappy blocking, dismantling and holding the ball to attack. Jokichido praised him as “accepting the transformation, and the current style of play has helped Nuggets a lot”.
In the attack system dominated by yokedge, Gordon only needs to stand near the bottom corner or bottom line and wait for receive the ball shots or air-cutting. When the Nuggets replaced Gordon with Gary Harris, who cooperated with yokki with yokki, yokki was still a little reluctant, but now Gordon is yokki’s favorite passing object.
In the regular season this season, Gordon received 155 assists from yokiki, with the most nuggets in the team. He shot 52.5 percent when he received the pass from yokiki. Gordon dunked 181 times throughout the season, only one less than the previous two seasons combined. Yorkich praised: “I know how to feed him the ball, and he knows how to squeeze the defender out to create receive the ball space.”
Yokedge’s restraint and passing ability helped Gordon achieve the highest offensive efficiency in his career, while Gordon’s confrontation and defensive ability helped yokedge share the defensive pressure.
In the 2020 Western finals, there was no way for the Nuggets to get Zhan Mei. In the first round of the playoffs in 2021, the Nuggets still eliminated the pioneers in the first round in the absence of Murray. Lillard exploded, and Malone arranged Gordon to take the main defense. At that time, Gordon’s defensive effect against Lillard was excellent, when Lillard faced Gordon, the 21 vote was only 9. The second round of nuggets was swept by the sun, but Gordon’s main defense of Booker was equally good, and there were 6 Mistakes in Booker’s 22 shots.
Last season, the Nuggets stopped for the first round due to injuries. Gordon did not defend Curry, but he put Poole (14 shot 4), Raymond Green (6 shot 1), thompson (3 out of 7 shots) and Luni (0 out of 2 shots) were only 8 out of 29 shots.
In the playoffs this year, the Nuggets finally gathered together. This injury did not stir up, and Gordon’s value began to be gradually realized. In the first round of playing Timberwolves, Gordon defended Carl Anthony Downs with a gray face. Downs had a huge height advantage but only made 10 of 27 shots, with a hit rate of 37% and 9 mistakes.
In the second round, Durant was killed. Gordon defended Durant to 26 out of 68 shots, with a hit rate of 38.2 percent. Among them, only 3 out of 13 shots were made in 3 shots, with 12 mistakes. Malone praised his disciple, “it is not that he prevented Durant from dying. No one can do this, but he made Durant’s attack more difficult. This is what you hope.”
Gordon was under great pressure to play the Lakers in the Western finals. On the defensive end, Gordon’s single defense against James and Davis is generally effective. On the offensive end, Gordon seemed to have a nightmare again.
Last year, Gordon, the warrior, was released indefinitely. He handed over the poor answer sheet of the three-point 9 shots 1 middle and a total of 21 shots 4 outside the restricted area. The Warrior freed up his troops to defend yokiki. Gordon practiced three points hard last summer, which was stimulated by this round of series. This time, the Lakers took Davis against Gordon and let Gordon go to the defense. Gordon made 6 shots of 0 in the first three rounds. But the key fourth game, facing the Lakers’ counterattack, Gordon scored 22 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists in the 5-point 3-shot 3.
In recent years, Gordon has always been entangled with the two keywords “Dwain-Wade” and “9 points” because of the scoring controversy in the dunk contest. But from Gordon’s point of view, he never wanted himself to be defined by “deduction.
He is more willing to say that he is a basketball player with a high IQ than a “general.
And he is more willing to win the championship than the “Dunk Contest champion” who has always been unavailable.