It was a completely inconsequential sequence, in the blink of an eye, in a game already won.
Alex Caruso, the Thunder’s Chihuahua yapping up the Nuggets’ trees, pestered Aaron Gordon in search of a desperation turnover. The ball squibbed loose. Gordon stuck his foot out at it.
And yet a kicked-ball violation in the final minutes of Denver’s Game 6 win could make or break Game 7, because their closer came up grabbing at his left hamstring.
Gordon, postgame, didn’t quite know what happened. What happened, externally, is the Nuggets forward appeared to barely be able to run.