Injuries have been an issue all season long for the Nuggets, who are currently missing forward Aaron Gordon and swingman Peyton Watson, but the health-related news on Saturday was mostly positive. As Bennett Durando of The Denver Post details (subscription required), wing Cameron Johnson – who had been out since December 23 due to a bone bruise in his knee – returned and was effective vs. Chicago, finishing with 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
Star center Nikola Jokic, meanwhile, was listed as questionable to play on Saturday due to a mildly sprained ankle, but he suited up and dominated, racking up 22 points, 17 assists, and 14 rebounds — Denver outscored the Bulls by 36 points during Jokic’s 33 minutes on the floor en route to a 136-120 victory.
First-time All-Star Jamal Murray, who has been the Nuggets’ healthiest starter this season, exited to the locker room with about four minutes left in the game due to a hip issue, but he returned to the bench before the final whistle and didn’t seem concerned after the game about the apparent injury.
“He seemed confident that he was OK,” head coach David Adelman said, per Durando (Twitter link).
Finally, while two-way player Spencer Jones isn’t injured, he was inactive on Saturday for a second time in the past three games after having reached his 50-game limit. As Durando writes within an interesting profile of Jones for The Denver Post (subscription required), the team is preparing to move the second-year forward into one the two open spots on its 15-man roster, though it’s unclear when exactly that will happen.
Denver plays twice before the All-Star break – Monday vs. Cleveland and Wednesday vs. Memphis – and will need to promote Jones to a standard contract if it wants him available for those games.
We have more from around the Northwest:
- Making his season debut on Friday after recovering from a torn hamstring, Trail Blazers guard Scoot Henderson had 11 points and nine assists in 21 minutes as the team snapped a six-game losing streak with a victory over Memphis. Teammate Jerami Grant said Henderson played “amazing” following his lengthy layoff, per Joe Freeman of The Oregonian. Interim head coach Tiago Splitter wasn’t quite as effusive with his praise, but suggested he was very encouraged by the third-year guard’s performance. “He was impressive on defense,” Splitter said, according to Jason Quick of The Athletic. “He brought energy, he pushed the pace, made some shots. Still was room for improvement, but just good to see him competing.”
- As the Trail Blazers got one guard back, they lost another to an injury. Shaedon Sharpe exited Friday’s win due to calf soreness and didn’t play on Saturday. Still, as Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report points out (via Twitter), there are a couple encouraging signs on Sharpe — he’s listed as having “soreness” rather than a strain, and the injury is to his left calf, not the right one, which he strained earlier in the season. That right calf injury cost him four games in November.
- Walker Kessler is out for the rest of the season and will enter restricted free agency this summer, so there’s no guarantee that he, Lauri Markkanen, and Jaren Jackson Jr. will ever share the court together for the Jazz. But that’s certainly the plan in Utah — head coach Will Hardy tells Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune that he’s excited about the size, rebounding, and rim-protecting ability of his new frontcourt trio and that he’s confident they’ll fit together offensively too. “We’ve played with Lauri as the quote-unquote ‘three’ before during my time here, and Jaren is a really talented player,” Hardy said. “I think it’s going to be good to get him in the building and around the team so that we can become and I can become more familiar with what his capabilities really are. You have all these preconceived notions of players when you coach against them, but they’re being asked to play within some type of a system wherever they are, and so it’ll be fun to explore those things with him and make him a part of the conversation in terms of what he thinks he can offer.”
Nuggets need to sign Jones ASAP
Jazz are getting a lot of flak over trading for JJJ but I don’t hate the move. Like if you’re seriously building a team to take on Jokic Wemby and Shai (the 3 best teams) then I think they are onto something potentially. You’ve got Jaren and Walker as two good defensive bigs you can put into Jokic and Wemby, plus they clog the lane for a guy like Shai. Then you’ve got Lauri who is a 7 foot SF also being there to contest shots and clog the lane. Spurs in particular have slashing guards and Thunder aren’t particularly great from deep. Then offensively Lauri at the 3 causes a lot of issues cause you can’t play 3 guards cause he’s just too big, you need to somewhat match his size. Plus Jaren can shoot so that potentially pulls a big away from the rim.
Keyonte has taken a major step forward in his improvement this year and needs to continue that for this to even be a discussion but they are building well. The SG spot aswell is wide open, they probably need a solid perimeter defender but also need a secondary ball handler and shooter. The depth is abit below average but it has some positives. Filipowski again offers a back up big that can shoot, Sensabaugh can be lights out and Vinny Williams was a very unstated part of that Memphis deal. Had they also included Nurkic for KCP in that Memphis deal I think they would be even better. He’d offer a good veteran SG that offers some 3 and D.
Not to mention they likely have a top 7 pick this year. They have a very good GM who doesn’t often lose in trades so it’ll be interesting to see how the next season or two goes but I like the direction.
The suns are the 6th seed and have had Jalen Green out all year just led by Booker and Brooks. This Jazz team could be a top 5 team in the weat
I’m unclear who guards an athletic 3 if thats Utah’s starting front line.