The Thunder grind out a crucial win on the road in Denver, and are well-positioned heading into Game 5.
OKLAHOMA CITY — This is a Western Conference semifinal series that, save for one blowout game, could belong heavily in favor of one team or the other.
Instead, it’s 2-2 between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, each resigned to living with a few regrets as they prepare for Tuesday’s Game 5 (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT).
You can trace everything back to the fourth quarters of Games 1, 3 and 4. That’s where it was won or lost. Neither team has been perfect in all of them, and that’s why there will be a bit of intrigue if the remaining games go down to the wire as well.
Can the Thunder close as strongly as they did down the stretch in Game 4?
Will Aaron Gordon add another moment to his rapidly rising reputation for coming up clutch for the Nuggets?
And which Kia MVP finalist will reign and serve as the difference-maker: Nikola Jokić or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander?
Here are four things to look for in Game 5 and how the series can tilt in either team’s favor.
1. A desperate Jokić
Nikola Jokić continued to struggle with his shot in Denver's Game 4 loss.
Let the evidence paint an excuse for Jokić since he refuses to do so:
He carried this team throughout the regular season, because of injuries and a lack of depth, and did so in historic fashion. He averaged a triple-double with a sprinkling of never-been-done-before efforts. He played 37 minutes a night. He only took time off for the birth of his son. He kept his level of play at MVP standards once again. Then he labored through a bruising seven-game first-round series with the LA Clippers.
And now here in the West semis, not only is he burning 40-plus minutes a night, but he’s also doing it against a big-man tandem of Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren, designed specifically for him and to harass him. Plus, the schedule is unforgiving as the Nuggets have played 10 games in 20 days.
Jokić is gassed, or at least it seems that way when you witness him short-arming shots, missing free throws and not having enough muscle to drop 3-pointers.
This is perhaps why, in the last three games, he has 15 assists to 16 turnovers and is shooting 33.3% overall and 18.2% on 3-pointers.
Again: He opened this series with a 42-point, 22-rebound masterpiece and didn’t seem tired then, but the intensity of the games certainly seems to be taking its toll now, along with OKC’s defensive strategy of doubling and troubling him.
“They’re shrinking the floor on me,” he said.
So, Jokić will be a bit desperate Tuesday — to solve the defense, to pace himself properly depending on the score, to upgrade his performance and ability to make plays for himself and his teammates. The Nuggets can’t advance unless all this happens.
“I need to do a better job, of course,” Jokić said.
2. More 3-point gold from Gordon
He changed his uniform number this season from 50 to 32 to honor his late brother, Drew, who wore it in high school. The first number represented a perfect score in the dunk contest, and it was worn as a protest by Gordon, who felt his scores should’ve been perfect in the All-Star Weekend dunk contests he lost.
Gordon is now transforming from a generational dunker — he probably should’ve won that classic 2016 Dunk Contest against Zach LaVine — to a much-improved 3-point shooter. Who saw this coming?
The 6-foot-8 forward shot 43.6% on 3-pointers in the regular season and is at 41.3% in the postseason. In four previous seasons in Denver, his regular-season best was 34.7% (in 2022-23), which is two points higher than his career mark before this season.
Even better, he’s shooting 54.5% on 3-pointers in this series, better than Jamal Murray and Jokić, who are usually the first options from that distance. His dramatic 3-pointers to help win Games 1 and 3 are already part of Nuggets history.
He was also a career 63% free-throw shooter who jumped to 81% this season and is at 87% in the playoffs.
Much of this shooting upgrade is due to the full-length basketball court he installed in his home. Even though he has the keys to the Nuggets’ practice facility, Gordon placed special emphasis on his training and preparedness to introduce a new wrinkle to his game, to get better here in Season No. 11. That says much about his basketball character and debt to a game that made him wealthy.
“A lot of repetition, a lot of form shooting and free-throw work,” he said.
It also says Gordon’s deep shooting should, and maybe will, come in handy if the Nuggets hope to prevail against the No. 1 seed. His ability to stretch the floor and make OKC pay for doubling on Jokić will be crucial over the next few games.
3. A Canadian showdown
They don’t spend much time chatting up their homeland or their Olympic experiences from last summer. That’ll come later, perhaps next week when one of them is sitting at home or on the beach, doing nothing.
The other will advance in these playoffs. Who will it be: Murray or Gilgeous-Alexander?
A Western Conference Finals berth could rest on which of these Toronto-area guards is better. And so far in this series, both have gone hot and cold, with their teams flourishing or failing depending on those performances.
Gilgeous-Alexander has been unusually inefficient at times and, save for a few games, unable to beat a path to the free-throw line. This is someone who averaged 32.7 points per game during an MVP-flavored season and remains among the toughest checks in the league.
“He’s obviously a great player and very difficult to defend,” said Nuggets interim coach David Adelman. “He keeps you on alert at all times.”
Murray is streaky, and when the ball’s not falling regularly, it’s costly to the Nuggets, if only because Jokić has clearly needed some assistance this series. But Murray is a career postseason beast with a rich history of big-shot making. So the odds are great that he’ll rally from his five-basket, four-turnover Game 4.
4. Will Williams bounce back?
He’s fresh off a coming-of-age season that saw him make the All-Star team and comfortably slide into the co-star role next to Gilgeous-Alexander. Jalen Williams has been all that here in his third season and, at 24, has made himself indispensable to the Thunder.
Therefore, his presence in Game 5 will be crucial, especially since this series has gone unevenly for him. In Game 1, he shot 5-for-20. In Game 3, he was the best player on the floor, chopping up the Nuggets with a crafty dribble game and enough shot-making to supply 32 points — 16 in the fourth quarter — and nearly bailing out the Thunder.
Then in Game 4, another disappearance: 2-for-13 shooting, although this time, the bench, mainly Aaron Wiggins (11 points, six rebounds), came to the rescue in OKC’s win.
When Williams is active and producing at both ends — he’s a solid defender — he’s the perfect match with Gilgeous-Alexander and makes OKC difficult to beat. Should the Thunder get that combo back on the same page, coupled with Game 5 at home, that’s a problem for the Nuggets … and maybe one that can’t be overcome.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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