Nuggets’ Afflalo Vs. Thunder in Game 1 at LinesMaker

Nuggets’ Afflalo Vs. Thunder in Game 1

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Den­ver Nuggets will be with­out start­ing guard Arron Afflalo for Game 1 of their play­off series against the Okla­homa City Thun­der on Sun­day night.

Afflalo has missed 13 games since early March because of a strained left ham­string. He has tried to come back and play three sep­a­rate times, most recently aggra­vat­ing the injury against Golden State last week.

“I’ve been through the sit­u­a­tion before where I can get to a week to 10-day period where my body feels good, as if I can play, and then I get on the court and it’s not the case,” Afflalo said.

“I think for once it’s time to be smart and sit out.”

Afflalo has aver­aged 12.6 points in 69 starts, and he was Denver’s leader in min­utes played before he was hurt March 5 against the Los Ange­les Clippers.

Game 2 in the series is Wednes­day night, but Afflalo isn’t sure he’ll be able to play then either. He sug­gested that he may give the injury more time to heal if the Nuggets are doing well.

“Just take it day to day, take it game to game,” Afflalo said. “Depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion can some­what dic­tate how fast I get back.

“Hope­fully we take care of busi­ness and I’ll be able to do things the proper way.”

Three times, Afflalo has missed 10 days before try­ing to play again. He re-injured it in his third game the first time he tried to come back, then didn’t make it through a full game in either of his two April comebacks.

“A week or a week and a half into it, I can run around and get out there, shoot, do what­ever,” Afflalo said. “But can I play a com­pet­i­tive play­off game with­out re-aggravating it and be effec­tive for my team for the type of min­utes I used to play? It’s a dif­fer­ent story.”

Afflalo said he wouldn’t rule him­self out for the series, which won’t shift to Den­ver for Game 3 until Saturday.

“You can get as much treat­ment as you want, but the body needs time to heal,” he said. “I fault myself for not giv­ing it the proper time ini­tially, but it’s tough for me to stay off the bas­ket­ball court.

“Even when peo­ple try to force me off, it’s tough. I’d have been in the gym on my own if I couldn’t play in a bas­ket­ball game. … That was a learn­ing expe­ri­ence, and I’m going to do what I have to do to get back right now.”

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