It hasn’t been the easiest season for Eric Gordon, but the veteran sharpshooter has found his groove recently with the Sixers.
Eric Gordon is here now, and was absolutely everywhere the Sixers needed him to be Friday night, when they stunned Cleveland.
Where he might be after the Feb. 6 trade deadline is open to conjecture, but certainly a floor-spacing sniper of his caliber would seem to be appealing to a contender. Especially given the fact that he also has a reasonable contract.
Also given the way he has been playing of late. The 36-year-old was in and out of the rotation the first several weeks of the season, his 17th in the league and his first in Philadelphia. But as the injuries have piled up he has begun seeing more daylight. Friday marked his seventh straight start, and his eighth in the last nine games.
Not coincidentally he has found his stroke. He went 5-for-8 from the floor and made all four of his 3-point attempts — two in a decisive fourth-quarter spurt — while scoring 15 points in the 132-129 victory over the East-leading Cavaliers, and over his last 17 games has knocked down exactly half of his 66 shots from the arc.
“That’s the only way you can be productive, is (by) playing,” he said, adding that he has developed chemistry with the team’s big guns — i.e., he opens up the floor for them, while at the same time giving the stars an outlet when the defense loads up against them.
“And now,” he said, “people start to see what I can really do with this team.”
Before that, he said his season had been “interesting.” Also hard.
“It’s hard because you’re not in the flow,” he said. “It’d be hard for anybody. Throughout my whole career, this is the first time I’ve ever been in this situation, so I would say it takes an adjustment. It’s definitely different.”
Coach Nick Nurse said before the game that everyone else has grown comfortable with Gordon, who is playing for his fifth team. They now know where he wants the ball, and what he can do once he gets it. Additionally he has been seeking out three-point opportunities in transition, always a great time to launch.
But when it comes down to it, there is a simple explanation for his resurgence.
“I think a lot of it’s probably just he’s a really good shooter,” Nurse said, “and just was not shooting it well. And now he is.”
Gordon is in fact making nearly 40 percent of his triple tries for the season, slightly above his career rate. And he was on the money when it mattered most Friday.
It was a rollicking affair between a Cavs team that began the night 36-7 and a Sixers team that had dropped seven straight to fall to 15-27. Everybody was making shots, from everywhere. Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell, just named to the All-Star team for the sixth straight season, had 37 points, while backup guard Ty Jerome, briefly a Sixer on draft night in 2019, poured in a career-high 33.
For the Sixers, Tyrese Maxey had 19 of his 29 in the first half, while Paul George had 21 of his 30 in the second. And the team as a whole established season highs for points, made threes (21, in 39 attempts) and three-point percentage (53.8). It was also the first time since a March 2021 game against Washington that the Sixers made over half their shots from the floor and the arc, and 85 percent of their free throws.
That enabled them to withstand Cleveland’s 25-for-52 3-point barrage, if barely. Jerome, who went 8-for-8 from 3, buried triples on consecutive possessions midway through the fourth, putting Cleveland up 116-110.
Then the Sixers improbably reeled off 13 straight points, six of those by Gordon. He swished a three-pointer from the left wing to put them ahead to stay, at 117-116, with 5:20 left, then capped the run with another trey from the right wing, with 3:19 remaining. And talk about chemistry — the first came off a feed from George, the second off a Maxey delivery.
“I’ve made a lot of those shots throughout my whole career, and you’ve just got to look forward to them,” Gordon said. “Those are shots that you’ve always got to look forward to.”
He had looked forward to winning here, after signing a two-year, $6.8 million contract with the Sixers last July. Everybody had. But Joel Embiid has again been hurt, as have several others. And while the team showed some promise in December, it has never really hit its stride.
“Yeah, it definitely weighs on you when you’re not winning,” Gordon said. “You’ve just got to fight through. There’s still a lot of games. Our season’s far from over.”
It remains to be seen what this club will look like in the weeks ahead. It remains to be seen if veterans like Gordon stay or go. The only thing that’s clear is that he was exactly where he needed to be Friday, doing what he has always done.