NEW ORLEANS — The Nuggets rested three players Sunday, which could become a normal occurrence as the season winds down.
Randy Foye, Wilson Chandler and Darrell Arthur were held out of the Nuggets’ win over New Orleans. All three are expected to play Monday at Memphis, but others could be held out of that contest. The main reason for that is to carve out additional, consistent minutes for the young players — Gary Harris, Joffrey Lauvergne, Will Barton and Erick Green.
Harris started Sunday’s contest.
“We’re going to figure out ways to get guys in a comfortable position as best we can,” Nuggets interim coach Melvin Hunt said. “And if that’s resting a guy, we’ll rest him. We’ve got to have good vision, long-term vision as well as short-term vision. But the long-term vision is definitely going to be considered.”
Harris played 16 minutes against the Pelicans. Green and Lauvergne didn’t get to 10 minutes, but Jusuf Nurkic logged 21 minutes and Barton starred in 46 minutes off the bench.
“Guys have been playing,” Hunt said. “To their credit, they’ve accepted roles and chopped-up minutes. Now we’ll be able to get them a little more settled into nine, 10 guys that can play most nights, that kind of know they are going to play, and maybe we can get a little more comfort for them.”
Footnotes. Kenneth Faried had 20 points and 10 rebounds for his sixth double-double in his last eight games. … The Nuggets forced 18 turnovers and turned those into 27 points.
