Juancho Hernangomez hasn’t played a meaningful minute for the Nuggets in the playoffs and hasn’t been a part of Denver’s rotation for months. But Hernangomez still gets his cardio in every night by vaulting from his seat onto the court in celebration each time one of his teammates scores a basket or makes a defensive stop.
Game 5 of the Nuggets’ second-round series against the Trail Blazers was no different. Hernangomez rose from his chair on countless occasions, cheering on his teammates from the bench on their way to a blowout 124-98 win that gave the Nuggets a 3-2 series lead with Game 6 scheduled for Thursday night in Portland.
“I love these guys,” Hernangomez said from in front of his locker after the game while clutching a strawberry smoothie in one hand. “We’ve been really working hard, three years, four years, for the same goal. I think we are close to where we want to be. This is like my family. If I don’t play, OK. I wish I played, but I don’t feel bad, I don’t feel hurt. I just want to cheer my teammates. Everybody’s happy if I make a bucket. I love all of them. When they play good I’m really happy for them. When they play bad I try to cheer them, and that’s my job for right now.”
For the first time in the postseason, Hernangomez and his teammates reversed roles as final minutes ticked off the clock late Tuesday night. Hernangomez entered the game with just 2:29 remaining in the fourth quarter as the Nuggets enjoyed a 114-91 lead and found himself alone in the corner a few possessions later. He fired a 3 off of a Mason Plumlee no-look feed from under the basket feed and drained his only field goal of the game from right in front of the Nuggets’ bench, his first made triple since April 7.
Hernangomez turned and immediately found a familiar face in Nikola Jokic, one of his closest friends on the team who was celebrating his made 3 from the Spaniard’s usual spot on the Nuggets’ sideline. What followed was a two-second full-body shimmy from Hernangomez right in front of Jokic that was straight out of “Dirty Dancing” and surely made his compadres back home proud.
“I go (into the bench) with Joker,” Hernangomez said describing his two-step with Jokic. “Everybody was so happy for me, and we just danced.”
Hernangomez’s pure joy is contagious inside the Nuggets’ locker room, and no one exemplifies Denver’s equal-opportunity mindset that the Nuggets play with on the offensive end of the floor more than the unselfish forward who’s genuinely happy to see others succeed even if it comes at the expense of his own minutes.
He’s a character off the court too with the ability to liven any room that he walks into within seconds. Before games, Hernangomez will act as Jokic bodyguard as the two walk down the hallway that connects the Nuggets’ locker room to Pepsi Center’s main court, yelling out to anyone within earshot that Denver’s “All-Star is coming.”
“I love Juancho,” Jokic said. “He’s probably the funniest teammate, right now, in our locker room. He’s a great guy. He’s always positive. You’re not going one guy saying something bad about Juancho. He has a great personality, great energy on our bench, he’s a really good teammate.”
“It was a happy moment,” Hernangomez said of his 3. “It was lovely. All my teammates supported me. I support everybody. I try to help all of them the most I can and I think they were happy for me. They know there have been tough moments when you are out of the rotation when you don’t play but I think on the team you have to know what your role is and fit perfectly, and I think that’s one of our keys. The players that don’t play, we are cheering everybody. We don’t have a bad attitude and we are doing our job. We all want the same goal. We all make (a goal) before the season started and here we are. That was a really happy ending for the game but it’s done. Let’s go tomorrow to Portland and try to finish there.”
Hernangomez is always the first one out of his seat to cheer on his teammates. Jokic and the rest of the Nuggets’ bench were more than glad to return the favor this time.
