Cameron Johnson will not play Sunday against the Spurs as the Nuggets continue to manage his ankle injury and keep key rotation players on the sideline to finish the regular season. Johnson is set to miss two straight games to close out the year.
The timing matters because Denver could fall to the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference with a loss and a Lakers win over the Jazz, making Sunday more than a routine end-of-schedule game. But the larger plan is clear: the Nuggets are prioritizing rest for Johnson, who should still be ready for a 30-plus-minute role once postseason play begins.
Johnson’s first season in Denver gave the team reason to be careful. He shot a career-best 48 percent from the field and 43 percent from long range in 2024-25, but he was limited to 54 appearances and operated in a lower-usage role than he had in Brooklyn. Denver is betting that a few more days off now will matter more than one more regular-season appearance.
The tension is that the Nuggets are still playing for seeding while treating the final stretch like a checkpoint. Johnson’s absence fits that approach, and it also signals how much Denver expects from him once the games count in the playoffs. If the plan holds, his season will turn from managed rest to a much heavier workload almost immediately.
For Johnson, the next step is not another regular-season runout. It is getting through the final day healthy enough to take on the role Denver believes he can handle when the postseason starts.
