PHOENIX – Lately, the pressure has been turned up on Nuggets’ shootarounds. In some respects, they’ve taken on a practice feel simply because there’s been no formal practicing of late.
For instance, the Nuggets did not have one regular practice last week. And the Nuggets had three days in which they could have been held. But the packed nature of the schedule of late, coupled with injuries have forced Nuggets coach Michael Malone to get creative in improving the team while making sure he has as close to a healthy roster as he can.
“The London trip was a great trip, but because you only play one game in a week, there’s going to be blowback from that,” Malone said. “So we come back from that trip and its six games in nine nights. I just have to be smart. We’re trying to rest our guys, we’ve got a lot of guys who are banged up and beat up.
“So, itap a fine line of giving them off so that we’re healthy enough to get through games. But what comes with that is you have game slippage, so we try to use our shootaround as more opportunities to clean things up and address areas of concern.”
Players do come in on the “days off,” there’s just not live 5-on-5 contact being done.
“Everyone comes in, gets with our training staff, gets treatments, gets with our (player development) coaches, gets some sort of on the court development,” Malone said. “Itap a balance, but I’d rather err on the side of caution in trying to keep our guys fresh.”
That said, after Saturday’s game against Phoenix, the Nuggets get two days off between games for the first time since they returned from London. Their next game, at the , is on Tuesday. But that game kicks off another stretch of five games in seven days.
“Itap tough because when you’re not working on your stuff every day in practice there’s going to be slippage,” Malone said. “But you have to be smart with the balances. I want healthy guys.”
Mudiay/Jokic return soon? Injured starters and did not make the trip to Phoenix, staying back for treatment. Both have a chance to get back in the lineup from mid-to-late in the week, Malone said.
“I saw Emmanuel the day before we left and A), he looked like he was in good spirits; and B), he was moving well,” Malone said. “So, once again, itap not a long-term thing. I think he’ll be back maybe sometime (this) week. When we got the news that it was a lot less severe than we all anticipated and he could be back as early as sometime in the middle of next week, thatap great. Thatap great for him, most importantly because you don’t want to see a guy hurt. And itap great for our team.
