Considering the season Peyton Watson was having before he injured his hamstring in February, he had big shoes to fill last weekend — his own.
Even when they got to be too big, he was unfazed. Accidentally slipping out of his right sneaker during the fourth quarter Sunday, Watson quickly retrieved it from the court, discarded it toward the sideline and kept playing on a flat tire. The ball found him immediately. He let it fly from the top of the key, an off-target 3-point attempt that also made for a relevant metaphor.
Don’t expect Watson’s self-assurance to be shaken by any uniform malfunctions or other growing pains that occur as the Nuggets reassimilate him into their system.
“I feel like I’m right back where I was six weeks ago,” he said after his first game back from a right hamstring strain. “The confidence is there. Everything is there. Handle was a little loose tonight. I was winded. The altitude kicked my butt. But I think other than that, everything else is amazing. … I have complete confidence in my game.”
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Watson was imperfect but impactful in his return. He contributed 14 points, six rebounds and three assists to a 128-112 win over the Trail Blazers. Three of his 13 field goal attempts didn’t touch the rim as he tried to shoot his way back into the rhythm he had established in January, when he was playing the best basketball of his life.
Assistant equipment manager Gene Marquez of the Denver Nuggets tosses a sneaker to Peyton Watson (8) after he lost it during the fourth quarter of the Nuggets’ 128-112 win over the Portland Trail Blazers at Ball Arena in Denver on Sunday, March 22, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
So much has changed since then. Watson was an emblem of the Nuggets’ resilience during a month without Nikola Jokic. His emergence as a viable ball-in-hand playmaker — set against the backdrop of his impending restricted free agency — has been one of the defining stories of the season in Denver. While he was out, the Nuggets slipped in the standings. Their many injuries finally wore on them — particularly his and Aaron Gordon’s.
“I think it’s good to get punched in the mouth sometimes,” Watson said. “I think that we needed that. That gives us a different level of grind, a chip on our shoulder, and it gave us some humility, too, which is what you need. Especially when you’ve got a squad as well-rounded as ours. I think that you need some adversity to kind of build a team up, and I mean, that’s what this year has been.”
Getting the band back together
Sunday marked not only the Nuggets’ first game with a fully available rotation since last Nov. 12, but also their first game that Jokic, Gordon and Watson all played since Nov. 22.
To describe them as fully healthy might still be a bridge too far. Gordon has yet to exceed 35 minutes since returning from his hamstring injury. Watson’s minutes were limited to 20 against Portland, and Christian Braun spared him from the most strenuous defensive assignment in Deni Avdija. Watson will eventually be tasked with guarding star players more often as he ramps up on a minutes restriction.
Then there’s this assertion made by Jokic.
“Like everybody, he will need some time, but it’s good to have him back,” the center said. “I think he’s gonna (need) a lot of time to get back to shape — not shape, but like playing shape. He missed a lot of time. … He did good. But I think he will need more time to get back to how he played before.”
How much time did Jokic feel like he needed after returning from his knee injury?
“Probably like three or four weeks,” he said. “You think you’re back when you’re back, but you need a little bit more.”
Watson refused to concede as much, pointing out that he has experience recovering from a similar injury, unlike Jokic did with his hyperextended knee. In September 2024, Watson suffered a hamstring strain in the same leg during a workout a few days before training camp. It caused him to miss all five of Denver’s preseason games, but he was back for opening day of the 2024-25 regular season.
“I felt good tonight. I think I’m gonna feel good in two nights. And then after that, we’ll just keep on going,” Watson said Sunday when asked about Jokic urging patience. “But also, Nikola, how long was he out? Four weeks? I don’t think he’s been out that long, maybe for his whole career? … Definitely since I’ve been here, he hasn’t been out that long. And I think with him, he’s responsible for so much that the responsibility is in his hands on whether we win or lose a lot of times. So I think when you have that much usage and that high of a responsibility, there’s definitely gonna be (more) rust that you have to shake off. But I mean, when you’re the best in the world and the first game, you come back and you get a triple-double with 30, I take that with a grain of salt.”
Still, Watson went on to explain that the final stages of his recovery felt more difficult this time because the injury occurred in a different region of the hamstring. He missed 19 games across six weeks and change, a little more than the four- to six-week timeline that Denver initially estimated.
“The first time I did it, it was in an area of my hamstring that was easier to strengthen because it was more centrally located in my hamstring,” he said. “This one was kind of in a weird spot that made it hard to strengthen it and kind of get back to the movement that I’m used to doing. So it definitely presented its own challenges.”
Playing his best basketball
Among them, the timing. Watson’s injury interrupted a surge in individual momentum. He was averaging 22.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists over an 18-game stretch before the night he abruptly limped off the court at Madison Square Garden. He was shooting 49.3% from the field and 45.7% outside the arc in that stretch. He had recently been named Western Conference Player of the Week.
“Really frustrating,” he said, “especially with the groove that I had worked my way into and the basketball I was playing.”
As he recovered, attention turned toward what his role would look like on the other side. He knew all along that fewer touches would be available to him once the original version of the roster was back on the court. But the Nuggets also didn’t want to neglect what they had discovered in January. Opportunities for Watson to bring the ball up, operate in the pick-and-roll or slash from the wing wouldn’t be merely to satisfy him; they would serve to help lighten the load on other ball-handlers like Jamal Murray. Watson played some two-man game with Jokic when Murray was on the bench Sunday. He also split ball-handling responsibilities with Murray in the second unit.
“Even when I first got injured, the coaches never, ever forgot about me,” he said. “They always, every day, asked me how I felt. They talked to me about ways they couldn’t wait to implement me when I got back into the lineup, and just ways they were gonna utilize me once the team was fully healthy. You saw today, like, DA had no hesitance putting the ball in my hand. Jok had no hesitance putting the ball in my hand. And that really did a lot for my confidence.”
Not that Watson needed the extra confidence. He was so antsy to play that he struggled to fall asleep Saturday night. Nothing was going to stop him from playing assertively on Sunday — not the six-week hiatus, and certainly not a wayward shoe.
“We’re a really well-rounded team,” he said, “and I think me coming back really solidifies that.”