Aaron Gordon’s defensive assignment is likely going from All-Star to all-timer as the Nuggets advance to the second round of the playoffs.

The Nuggets starting power forward displayed his value in the opening series against Karl-Anthony Towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Gordon was the primary defender on Towns and helped hold the three-time All-Star to 17 or fewer points in three of the five games of the first-round series. A 27-point performance in Game 3 and a 26-point night in Tuesday’s Game 5 boosted Towns’ scoring average to 18.2 points per game on 45.7% shooting. Both numbers were lower than his regular-season averages.

“I really feel that Aaron, in a very quiet way, had a tremendous impact against the T’Wolves,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Thursday as the Nuggets shifted their focus to Phoenix. “Karl-Anthony Towns, when he plays a whole season, is an All-Star, and I felt Aaron’s ability to go out there and guard him, he did a hell of a job.”

Late Thursday, the NBA released tipoff time for Game 1. The Western Conference semifinal starts at 6:30 pm Saturday at Ball Arena (TNT).

Now, he’s got one hell of an assignment in the second round, Kevin Durant. The two-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player scored between 25 and 31 points in all five games of Phoenix’s first-round series games against the Clippers. He made 51.8% of his shots from the field, including a 45.8% mark on 3-pointers, and hit 95.6 of his free throws.

“You just try to slow him down, try and make it difficult for him,” Gordon said. “KD is a special talent. He has been for a long time. He will continue to be.”

Gordon and Bruce Brown, a former teammate of Durant in Brooklyn, agreed the best thing you can do is understand his tendencies and prevent the 6-foot-10 forward with guard skills from getting comfortable. Some luck is involved, too.

“We all know he likes to go left and get to his middy,” Brown said of Durant’s deadly mid-range game. “I mean, there’s not much we can do if he gets it up. We just got to be physical with him.”

Game 1 between the Suns and Nuggets on Saturday at Ball Arena will be just Durant’s 14th as a member of the Suns. Phoenix is 12-1 in those games with the lone loss coming in Game 1 of the first-round series against the Clippers. Two of those wins came against the Nuggets as they rested most of their starters late in the regular season.

“We didn’t play our guys, they played theirs, so we have a pretty good idea of who they are, how they want to play from those two meetings then watching their first-round series against the Clippers,” Malone said. “We understand this team, offensively, is dynamic.”

The responsibility of making life tough on Durant will not be Gordon’s alone. Malone stressed the importance of throwing different looks at guys like Durant, Devin Booker and Chris Paul, even though they’ve already seen it all, and making them work on the defensive end, as well. Reserve forward Jeff Green, who’s known Durant since they were teammates in Seattle, could get the assignment when Gordon is out of the game. Even when Gordon is on the floor, the job will be shared. That’s what it takes to make it tough on one of the greatest scoring forwards of NBA history.

“The five players on the floor,” Brown answered when asked how many players it takes to stop Durant. “We gotta talk, know exactly what he likes to do, where he likes to get, the plays they run.”