The Nuggets are down to six games for the starting five to get ready for the postseason.
Aaron Gordon was held out of Sunday’s game against Golden State after experiencing tightness in his left calf earlier Sunday. Peyton Watson, who remains on a minutes restriction, started in Gordon’s place alongside Jamal Murray, Christian Braun, Cam Johnson and Nikola Jokic.
“He’s got some soreness in his calf,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said pregame. “It’s just too delicate to play him. Even if something small happened, he’d be out for two weeks, or whatever it is, that’s a killer with this many games to go.”
Typically, the Nuggets coach said he would want a player to go through a pregame warmup before a determination on their availability is made. Given Gordon’s string of soft tissue injuries – a pair of right hamstring strains forced Gordon to miss 43 of Denver’s first 75 games this season – Adelman chose caution.
“Today is not one of those times,” Adelman said. “He called in early today to (vice president of sports medicine) Steve Short, communicated with me. As soon as we talked about it, it just felt like for him, for his body and also for his mind … if you feel like there’s a chance something could happen, there’s no reason for him to play.”
If more caution is needed, the Nuggets could get Gordon nearly a week off by holding him out of Wednesday’s game in Utah. After the Jazz game, Denver doesn’t play again until Saturday’s home game against San Antonio.
“Aaron wants to play. He wants to be there for his teammates,” Adelman said. “It’s just not going to work today.”