start<\/a> in their quest to repeat as champions. Gordon, who shoots with his right hand, will not be returned to the field.<\/p>\n\u201cWe need him to heal inside and out,\u201d said Malone, whose team hosts Memphis on Thursday. “Experiencing something like that is not something you come back from easily. It's something where you have to heal physically, but you also have to heal mentally and what you just experienced.<\/p>\n
“We want him back. We know we're better off with him. But I want to support Aaron Gordon and make sure that when he comes back, he's ready to come back and play at the level that we know he is able.”<\/p>\n
Teammate Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said he planned to contact Gordon after hearing the news in practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just uplifts everyone who comes when he\u2019s with them,\u201d Caldwell-Pope said. \u201cWe need to do the same for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nuggets were without Gordon for five games earlier this season due to right heel strain. They also played without point guard Jamal Murray for more than a dozen games as he dealt with ankle and hamstring issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo our players\u2019 credit, whether it\u2019s Jamal or Aaron, it doesn\u2019t matter, our guys stepped up,\u201d Malone said. “It speaks to the quality of our depth. We have guys who step up and take advantage of every opportunity.”<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Gordon away from Nuggets after dog bite to face, hand\u060c DENVER \u2014 Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon needed 21 stitches after suffering lacerations to his face and right hand when he was bitten by a family dog \u200b\u200bover Christmas. The Nuggets announced in a statement that Gordon, 28, “is in good condition” but will remain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[689,8327,7665,2283,8326,1438,837],"class_list":["post-16888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-aaron","tag-bite","tag-dog","tag-face","tag-gordon","tag-hand","tag-nuggets"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16890,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16888\/revisions\/16890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}