{"id":477642,"date":"2026-01-07T12:33:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T11:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=477642"},"modified":"2026-01-07T12:33:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T11:33:27","slug":"nuggets-hold-steady-without-jokic-as-his-rehab-progresses-faster-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/nuggets-hold-steady-without-jokic-as-his-rehab-progresses-faster-than-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets hold steady without Jokic as his rehab progresses faster than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"228\" data-end=\"447\">The <strong data-start=\"232\" data-end=\"273\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Denver Nuggets<\/span><\/span><\/strong> have managed to stay competitive without <strong data-start=\"315\" data-end=\"356\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Nikola Jokic<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, posting a <strong data-start=\"368\" data-end=\"382\">2\u20132 record<\/strong> in the four games the superstar center has missed due to injury.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"449\" data-end=\"702\">The most encouraging development for Denver is the progress of Jokic\u2019s recovery. According to team expectations, the three-time MVP candidate is on track to return <strong data-start=\"613\" data-end=\"649\">no later than the All-Star Break<\/strong>, with his rehabilitation reportedly going very well.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"704\" data-end=\"923\">Jokic has continued to travel with the team during their East Coast road trip and is said to be well advanced in his rehab from a <strong data-start=\"834\" data-end=\"854\">left knee injury<\/strong>, allowing him to be increasingly aggressive in the recovery process.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"925\" data-end=\"1120\">Denver\u2019s resilience was highlighted Monday night with an <strong data-start=\"982\" data-end=\"1053\">overtime road win against the <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Philadelphia 76ers<\/span><\/span><\/strong>. The victory came despite the Nuggets being severely short-handed.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1122\" data-end=\"1495\">In addition to Jokic, Denver was also without <strong data-start=\"1168\" data-end=\"1209\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Jamal Murray<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1211\" data-end=\"1252\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Aaron Gordon<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1254\" data-end=\"1295\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Christian Braun<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, and <strong data-start=\"1301\" data-end=\"1342\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/span><\/span><\/strong>. That group joined <strong data-start=\"1362\" data-end=\"1403\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Cameron Johnson<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1408\" data-end=\"1449\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Jonas Valanciunas<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, who are sidelined with longer-term injuries.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1497\" data-end=\"1635\">Despite the mounting absences, Denver has remained competitive, buying valuable time as it awaits the return of its franchise cornerstone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Denver Nuggets have managed to stay competitive without Nikola Jokic, posting a 2\u20132 record in the four games the superstar center has missed due to injury<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":386897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[179],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-477642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","typology-injury"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/05\/Denver-Nuggets.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477642"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=477642"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=477642"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=477642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}