{"id":356095,"date":"2025-12-18T13:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356095\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T13:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:13:14","slug":"nuggets-notes-brown-valanciunas-watson-jones-strawther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356095\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets Notes: Brown, Valanciunas, Watson, Jones, Strawther"},"content":{"rendered":"

With several players missing due to injuries and both of their centers on the sidelines after having fouled out, the Nuggets relied on their depth to secure a 128-125 overtime win over Houston on Monday. Bruce Brown<\/a>, Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a>, and second-year forward Spencer Jones<\/a> joined Jamal Murray<\/a> and Cameron Johnson<\/a> in Denver\u2019s closing lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why they brought all of us in this summer, right?\u201d Brown said after the victory, according to Bennett Durando of The Denver Post<\/a> (subscription required). \u201cFor this exact situation. People go down. You never really have a season when everyone is just fully healthy for 82 games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown and Hardaway, who both rank among the Nuggets\u2019 top six players in total minutes so far this season, signed minimum-salary contracts with the team as free agents over the summer. The other major offseason depth addition was center Jonas Valanciunas<\/a>, who fouled out on Monday but has been an important rotation piece in his role as Nikola Jokic<\/a>\u2018s backup this fall, Durando writes in another Denver Post story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Durando observes, Valanciunas has already appeared in more games (25) than the player for whom he was traded (Dario Saric<\/a>) played last season (16). And while he\u2019s only averaging 12.8 minutes per game, the veteran big man has made the most of his limited role, with 8.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per night. The Nuggets are still being outscored with Jokic off the floor, but their net rating when the three-time MVP is on the bench (-1.2) is the best it has been since 2020\/21 by a significant margin.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Nuggets:<\/p>\n

With Aaron Gordon<\/a> and Christian Braun<\/a> out, the Nuggets haven\u2019t missed a beat offensively, largely due to the way that role players like Jones and Peyton Watson<\/a> have stepped up, Durando writes for The Denver Post<\/a>. Watson has averaged 14.2 points per game on .529\/.429\/.694 shooting as a starter, while Jones has put up 8.2 PPG on .564\/.448\/.583 shooting in that role. The Nuggets\u2019 lineup with those two alongside Jokic, Murray, and Johnson has a +19.4 net rating<\/a> and a staggering 136.9 offensive rating in 143 minutes. \u201cI did not expect us to score the ball like we have,\u201d head coach David Adelman admitted. Both Watson and Jones will be eligible for restricted free agency at season\u2019s end.
\nWatson exited Monday\u2019s game due to what the team referred to as a right trunk contusion. \u201cIt was bone on bone,\u201d Adelman said after the win (Twitter link<\/a> via Durando). \u201c\u2026 It could be totally fine tomorrow. But it hurt him. It was one of those stingers that he just couldn\u2019t get himself warmed up again. \u2026 Nothing long-term as far as I understand. Just probably a bone bruise.\u201d\u00a0Watson told Vinny Benedetto of The Denver Gazette (Twitter link<\/a>) on Tuesday that he was kneed in between the hip and rib areas and that it hurts to do things like laugh and cough, but he has no structural damage.
\nNuggets wing Julian Strawther<\/a> was available to play on Monday after being inactive for 12 consecutive games due to a back injury (Twitter link<\/a> via Benedetto). However, he was a DNP-CD. Strawther has averaged just 7.9 minutes per game in nine outings so far this season after playing 21.3 MPG in 65 games in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With several players missing due to injuries and both of their centers on the sidelines after having fouled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,3892,3902,3903,3909,82339,85,4701],"class_list":{"0":"post-356095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-bruce-brown","12":"tag-jonas-valanciunas","13":"tag-julian-strawther","14":"tag-peyton-watson","15":"tag-spencer-jones","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tim-hardaway-jr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}