In the past few weeks the Denver Nuggets have had a glaring hole in their starting lineup and, due to a few uncharacteristic losses, they still find themselves fighting for the second or third seed in the playoffs.
Nuggets power forward Kenyon Martin is set to return to the lineup tonight after he has missed the last 18 games with an ailing knee that he was receiving plasma rich platelet therapy in an attempt to recover before the playoffs. He will make his return tonight at just the right time as the Nuggets face the San Antonio Spurs tonight.
“He says he’s feeling pretty good,” Nuggets acting coach Adrian Dantley said. “We’re going to bring him along slow and see how it goes. Maybe 20-25 minutes, five minutes a quarter.”
That is considerably more minutes than I would have expected Martin to play as I would have foreseen about 10 minutes a game over the next two games against the Spurs and then Memphis Grizzlies before the Nuggets close out the regular season against the home-court hungry Phoenix Suns. Martin, though, is no regular human being as we all have seen after he has come back from micro-fracture surgeries on both of his knees in the past.
Martin is clearly feeling close to 100 percent as he said he absolutely would not play tonight’s contest unless there was no pain after Thursday and Friday’s practices. With no pain today, K-mart is ready to give it a go.
This comes at a perfect time for the Nuggets too as Chris “Birdman” Andersen is suffering through multiple injuries of his own–including a sore left ankle and broken ring and pinky fingers–and the Nuggets can use all the big men they can get on the floor.
The Nuggets will be looking to win the next two games to make the last game with the Suns as meaningless as possible. They will lock up the Northwest Division over the Utah Jazz with two more wins and it would be great if Martin could rest against the Suns rather than playing a tough game guarding Amare Stoudemire.
Tonight’s game tips-off at 7:00 p.m. MDT.
***Thanks to the Denver Post and Chris Dempsey for providing Dantley’s quote.
