Will Barton still a "couple of weeks" away from returning to Nuggets' lineup

HOUSTON — It’s been more than 11 weeks since Will Barton went down with a painful hip injury in the Nuggets’ second regular-season game against the Phoenix Suns. More than two months after a subsequent surgery, Barton is still weeks away from a return.

“He’s improving,” Michael Malone said pregame. “I think I said it a month ago, he’s maybe 7-10 days away, and that’s come and gone. But I do think that Will in the next couple of weeks should be back out there playing and helping us out.”

Malone’s 7-10 day comment came back on Dec. 16 and wasn’t a firm timetable by any means but provided some hope that Barton could be back sooner rather than later. Since then, Barton has been steadily progressing through his rehab. The team issued an update on Dec. 20 that said that Barton, along with Gary Harris and Paul Millsap, who were both in the process of coming back from respective injuries, “continue to progress with their respective rehabilitation programs and will continue to be evaluated on a weekly basis going forward.”

Harris and Millsap have since returned to Denver’s rotation and could rejoin the Nuggets’ starting lineup tonight in Houston. Harris played 26 minutes Saturday against Charlotte in his third game back from injury and finished with 17 points, six rebounds and five assists. Millsap looked spry in 27 minutes in the Nuggets’ win over the Hornets — the most he’s played since returningto  the floor from an eight-game absence due to a fractured right toe — and tallied 18 points and six rebounds.

“Those guys especially after that Charlotte game, both those guys were really good in that game off the bench,” Malone said. “So when I say after the game, ‘Our bench played well tonight,’ that’s with two starters obviously. But there’s no doubt. Those guys, whether it’s tonight or in the next couple of games, they’ll definitely be back in the lineup where they belong.

“Me bringing them off the bench is just slowly working them back in, getting game rhythm, getting their confidence back after being out for a lengthy period, but you can see as I can see that they have a rhythm, they have a confidence and they’re more than ready to be back in the starting lineup.”

Millsap, Harris, Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic — four of Denver’s five opening night starters — played five minutes together Saturday against the Hornets. Denver outscored Charlotte 20-9 over that stretch.