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The Denver Nuggets may have survived Saturday night. But they certainly didn’t exhale. Inside Intuit Dome, Game 4 wasn’t just a battle against the Los Angeles Clippers. It was a full-on street fight against momentum, injury concerns, and the ghosts of blown leads. And even after Aaron Gordon’s improbable buzzer-beating dunk saved them from collapse, interim head coach David Adelman made one thing clear: “No.”

“No,” he said bluntly postgame, when asked if he could finally exhale.

“What I was excited about is the things we talked about the last 36 hours — being more physical, controlling the pace, slowing them down. But this? Each game is its own chapter. It’s not about relief. It’s about learning.”

Because even in victory, the underlying tension lingered: exhaustion, injuries, and the creeping reality that Denver is riding a razor’s edge. The game itself unfolded like a storybook nightmare for the Nuggets.

Denver built a commanding 22-point lead early — slicing through the Clippers’ defense with Nikola Jokic’s usual brilliance (36 points, 21 rebounds, 8 assists) and just enough supplemental scoring to look comfortable.

But the fourth quarter exposed deeper fears: fatigue, lapses, and vulnerability. The Clippers — led by Ivica Zubac and a resurgent James Harden — uncorked a 32-9 run. A 22-point lead vanished in a blink. The game was tied at 99 with just eight seconds remaining.

It felt like Denver’s worst playoff ghosts — blown leads, injuries, missed opportunities, much like Game 7 of the West Semi’s last year vs the Wolves — had resurfaced all at once. And so, with no timeouts remaining, the Nuggets’ final possession wasn’t a masterpiece drawn from a whiteboard. It was desperation. Urgency.

The last instruction? Brutally simple. Adelman said. “Everyone said it in the huddle: ‘Make sure you just get a shot up.’”

There was no perfect plan. There was no perfectly designed lob play. There was only the urgency to give themselves a shot. Jokic fought to catch the inbound, stumbled outside the three-point line, pivoted, and hoisted a contested, fading three-pointer. It airballed — a bad miss.

But standing under the rim was Aaron Gordon, timing it perfectly, leaping early, and dunking the ball through as the red light blinked across the backboard. Gordon sprinted off in celebration. The Nuggets bench mobbed the court. Replay review lingered, but the call stood: Good basket. Nuggets win.

Yet even amid the chaos, Adelman’s postgame remarks betrayed the deeper concerns looming over Denver. With key players physically compromised, the Nuggets were operating on instincts, not polish.

“No timeouts — just wanted him to catch it. Was hoping he’d catch it at the logo, not outside the three-point line.” Adelman explained. “Obviously, he had a really tough shot against Zubac. When the shot goes up, there’s no reason not to crash everybody.”

That sense of urgency — that every missed shot could be the last shot — reflects how fragile Denver’s margin truly is right now. Moreover, the team has other issues: Michael Porter Jr.’s shoulder is barely functional. Russell Westbrook’s absence stripped Denver’s second unit of energy. And even Aaron Gordon himself, the night’s hero, has been laboring through postseason bruises.

Victory didn’t erase those facts. It merely postponed their consequences. Because beneath the euphoria, injury concerns are mounting, trust cracks are showing, and the Clippers — for all their heartbreak — now smell blood in the water heading into Game 5.

Aaron Gordon’s heroics mask deeper problems for Denver

For a few fleeting seconds after Aaron Gordon’s thunderous dunk, it felt like Denver could breathe. They had survived. They had stolen Game 4. They were headed home with the series tied.

But reality, as it tends to in playoff basketball, caught up fast. Inside that locker room, the feeling wasn’t celebration. It was a grim, exhausted silence.

Because Aaron Gordon’s heroics didn’t heal Michael Porter Jr.’s shoulder, barely hanging on. It didn’t rush Russell Westbrook back into uniform. It didn’t change the growing truth that Denver’s margin for error — even with Nikola Jokic at his MVP best — is vanishing fast.

The Nuggets aren’t just battered physically. They’re fraying mentally. The collapse that nearly cost them Game 4 — a 32-9 Clippers run fueled by broken offensive sets and crumbling defensive rotations — wasn’t random.

It was a symptom. A sign of deeper fatigue. A warning that their championship defense, already wobbling, is one hard punch away from falling apart.

Tyronn Lue sees it now. Expect the Clippers to throw the kitchen sink in Game 5: blitzes the moment Jokic touches the ball, full-court pressure on Jamal Murray, congested paint daring Denver’s weary shooters to fire under duress.

Expect the emotional fuse to burn faster too. Game 4’s dustup — Harden shoving, Gordon charging, six technical fouls erupting in seconds — wasn’t just playoff theater. It was a preview. This series has crossed into something nastier, heavier, more dangerous.

“We started turning the ball over a little too much. They started switching their defenses up,” Gordon admitted, pointing to Denver’s struggle against LA’s zone defense. Denver failed to score on all five zone possessions in the fourth, with hesitant dribbling and missed jumpers stalling their offense.

Fatigue also plagued the Nuggets, with Jokic scoreless for over 10 minutes in the fourth until the final minute. Coach David Adelman noted, “That was crazy,” reflecting the chaotic finish. Without Gordon’s improbable play, a 3-1 deficit loomed, potentially fatal. As Denver heads to Game 5, they must address defensive lapses, turnover issues, and inconsistent offense to avoid relying on last-second miracles. Gordon’s dunk was a spark, but deeper cracks remain.