Ty Lawson has reaped the benefits of taking the last couple of preseason games off to rest a sore hamstring.
Nuggets coach Brian Shaw said Lawson has looked strong in practices this week and is ready to go for the season opener Wednesday night against Detroit.
“Ty got the rest,” Shaw said. “He showed no signs of anything that was hampering him before the two days that he had off.”
The players who were on minute restrictions in the preseason because of injuries suffered last season will remain that way while they round into form.
Those players — Danilo Gallinari, Nate Robinson, JaVale McGee and J.J. Hickson — will see those minutes increase soon. Gallinari and Robinson will work into the 20-25 minute range to start the season, McGee probably a bit less. Hickson is serving a five-game suspension to start the season.
Kroenke confident. Nuggets president Josh Kroenke on Tuesday expressed satisfaction with what he saw in the preseason from his team, while making clear the stakes this season are high.
Saying the Nuggets will use the “latter part of last season as a launching pad for this season,” Kroenke is happy to see all of his players available again.
He would not give a number of victories to what a successful season means to him, saying “trying to quantify success is kind of hard,” but he said merely getting to the playoffs is not a goal.
“I think there’s no mind-set that says we just want to qualify for the playoffs,” Kroenke said.
“I think that we have a pretty good team,” Kroenke said. “I think this town was pretty excited about this team a couple of years ago. And right now, we’re trying to figure out a way to not only build upon what we established a couple of years ago, but keep progressing toward a bigger prize — and that’s a championship.”
