Nuggets inching closer to full health

An event Nuggets followers have waited virtually 4 months to have a good time may lastly be close to.

Ace Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson inch closer to getting back from their respective proper hamstring strains, Denver is inside vary of a totally wholesome rotation for the primary time since final Nov. 12. That was the night time Cam Johnson and Christian Braun each suffered accidents in Los Angeles, the eleventh recreation of the season and the final time David Adelman was ready to play his opening day beginning lineup.

“My hope is that we get the full group with 20 games to go. That would be what I pray for nightly,” Adelman mentioned Tuesday. “Just so we can actually see what it is. We have the 10 games. We have the start of the season. Those 10 games were very successful. We were 8-2. We statistically were as good as anybody in the NBA. But that’s been a long time coming. So I don’t know what we’ll be when everybody gets back. But we need to play.”

Gordon and Watson have been at Ball Arena for conditioning work and a few full-contact enjoying with Denver’s assistant coaches on Monday, Adelman mentioned. When the full group acquired collectively for an official apply Tuesday, Gordon “did basically everything but the contact stuff.” Adelman did not specify the exact extent of Watson’s involvement, however the 23-year-old wing posted a message on social media saying “back soon.”

Twenty video games remaining, to literalize Adelman’s idealistic imaginative and prescient, could be subsequent Thursday, when the Nuggets host the Lakers. How life like is that?

“I’m putting a lot of pressure on people (with that goal),” Adelman mentioned, slowing his roll. “Maybe we can get there.”

Gordon’s hamstring is the far better concern to group officers. He has already injured it twice this season — first in November, then on Jan. 23 while playing the second game of a back-to-back in Milwaukee. Over the final two seasons, the beginning energy ahead has missed 66 video games with quite a lot of tender tissue accidents, together with a left hamstring pressure that he suffered throughout the 2025 playoffs.

The Nuggets have met with Gordon this week to talk about his return plan, league sources advised The Denver Post, as they fight to steadiness their eagerness to play with their broader curiosity in being cautious forward of the playoffs. Denver’s defensive score this yr is 9.6 factors higher with Gordon on the court docket than with him off it.

“We did some situational defensive drills. He was a part of that,” Adelman mentioned Tuesday. “But it is simply going to be a day-by-day factor. And I believe the extra he will get on the market and will get up and down and performs with contact, even when it is in opposition to our coaches, that’ll deliver extra confidence for everybody to really feel comfy with him coming again. But Aaron has been nice. He’s understood the method. And I believe all of you perceive how irritating this has been for him. He sees us shedding video games that he might be part of. He sees us profitable video games that have been fully joyful, like Portland, the place every part went our manner, and he isn’t part of both.