HOUSTON — As Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin gets set today to have the latest MRI on his right knee, his teammates are collectively holding their breath.
“It’s tough to see him go down,” Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony said. “Just to see how much he battled back to get where he’s at and get another injury. So I hope it isn’t too severe. I hope the MRI says something good for us.”
Martin does, too.
The Nuggets big man, who has spent the better part of the past two seasons injured, strained his right knee Saturday during the first half against the Houston Rockets. He did not return to the game, but did walk out of the rena in good spirits, saying he was “not worried” about what the future might hold.
But it’s understandable why some would be. The knee Martin injured was the one he had microfracture surgery on a year ago.
Nuggets trainers and coaches designed the early part of the season to gradually bring Martin along. His minutes were limited to fewer than 25 for most of the first three weeks and he was banned from playing in back-to-back games.
But recently those rules were relaxed. Martin had begun playing in every game and his minutes started to rise more toward 30. He played in all of the Nuggets’ games last week, four in five days.
“We definitely want Kenyon in there,” Nuggets forward Ed-uardo Najera said. “It seemed like he was getting better as we were playing more games.”
If Martin misses any significant amount of time, the Nuggets will be hurting for frontcourt players. Nene, whose injured left thumb is in a cast, is still weeks away from returning. Steven Hunter, a center who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery Nov. 16, is just getting back on the court for workouts this week.
The Nuggets could be down to just one player taller than 6-feet-9 — Marcus Camby — and just two true post players in Najera and Camby. It will force coach George Karl to continue to be creative with his lineups as he already has had to be with the shortage of guards to start the season. Players such as Anthony, Bobby Jones and Linas Kleiza, when he returns from a sprained ankle, could be forced into playing some power forward.
“It would definitely be a setback,” Najera said. “But at the same time, we’ve been in this situation before and we managed to get better and improve. So I think that it’s just an opportunity to play with different combinations. I think that we’ll be fine. Right now what we’ve got to do is just get healthy.”
Saturday, Camby found himself in the unenviable position of being the only “big” on the court during parts of the second half against the Rockets, as the Nuggets were forced to play small.
“Man, it’s tough out there sometimes for me,” Camby said. “I was playing with four ‘smalls’ out there and I was just trying to battle Yao (Ming) and (Luis) Scola and (Chuck) Hayes and all those guys by myself. So we don’t need another ‘big’ to go down right now, especially with Nene being out; Eddie’s playing hurt. Hopefully it’s good news for Kenyon.”
Added guard Anthony Carter: “We’re already short-handed. We’ve got guys coming in and out, and you really can’t get a rotation. It’s tough to lose another big man; we’ve got a couple of them out already. The ones we got ain’t really healthy. So it’s tough.”
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
