Last year Portland beat Denver because the Nuggets ran out of gas. At times it seemed like C.J. McCollum had more energy than all five Nuggets on the floor combined.

To avoid a repeat the Nuggets must improve their Load Management and Injury Management, with 82 games played just to seed the playoffs this is common sense.

The Nuggets’ strengths are high basketball IQ, teamwork, effort and positive attitude. Physically they have good quickness, agility and scoring skills, they are a little below NBA average in length and strength.

The Nugs played great defense early last season however their defensive ranking slipped as the season wore on and injuries pilled up. To play great defense with average length and strength requires great mental focus and physical effort, almost impossible to sustain when you are tired and hurting.

By design and a lack of great "one on one" scorers the Nuggets need more movement on offense than other elite NBA teams. As with their defense greater mental focus and physical effort are required. The Nuggets must consistently out work their opponents, very hard to do in the NBA.

When Magic’s Lakers played Bird’s Celtics the healthier team won.

When an athlete plays with an injury four things can happen, three of them are bad. The good result; the athlete "sucks it up" and plays well. The first bad result; the athlete plays poorly due to the injury.

The second bad result; the athlete aggravates an injury delaying his or her recovery to full playing efficiency. Nuggets in this category last year included Harris, Hernangomez, Barton, Lyles, Millsap and Murray whose masochistic tendencies are the chief impediment to his potential stardom. Of these five players only Millsap was close to 100% healthy in the playoffs.

The third bad result; the athlete aggravates the injury to such an extent that his or her career is significantly diminished, Isaiah Thomas suffered this fate. Michael Porter dropped to the 14th pick because NBA teams suspected that he would suffer a similar fate.

NBA players are much more likely to be too brave rather than too cowardly with their injuries, even middle-aged weekend warriors have this tendency. Elite coaches such as Michael Malone have a very strong urgency to win each game, they will let players play regardless of the wisdom and, in spite of good intentions, they are generally unable to rest their best players in a planned logical manor.

The Nuggets claim to have great depth, they need to prove it by spreading-out the load to ensure health and energy in the playoffs and hasten the development of their younger players.

Josh Kroenke, a good college player at Missouri, needs to take charge of Load Management and Injury Management. He must work with his coaching staff to set and enforce average minute usage for each player and empower the medical and training staff to ignore the wishes of players and coaches and work in the best long-term interests of the players and team.