The Denver Nuggets continued their recent hot streak with their fifth win in a row on Monday night against the Houston Rockets, but the win didn’t come without a cost. Emerging wing Peyton Watson left the game with an injury early in the first quarter after a hard collision. 

Following the game, Nuggets coach David Adelman provided an update on Watson’s injury, which the team called a right trunk contusion. Adelman suggested that Watson is day-to-day and that the injury wasn’t anything structural, and the Nuggets listed him as questionable on Wednesday’s injury report ahead of Thursday’s game against the Orlando Magic.

“Well, a lot of discomfort,” Adelman said. “He was bone on bone. It's one of those things where I think it could be totally fine tomorrow. It hurt him. I mean, it was one of those stingers that he just couldn't get himself warmed up again from. Peyton's a tough kid, so when he called for the sub and fouled, you knew it wasn't good. But nothing long-term, as far as I understand.”

Adelman’s initial assessment of a bone bruise lined up with the information the team ended up releasing a bit later on officially, so all indications are that Watson shouldn’t miss too much time if he misses any time at all. Adelaman also praised Spencer Jones for stepping up on Tuesday after Watson went down, helping the team seamlessly fill Watson’s important two-way role.

“Just probably a bone bruise,” Adelman said. “Sometimes those can be really painful. So, yeah, it sucked to lose Peyton. Spencer (Jones) played so many minutes because he had to stay with Durant's minutes. So, team effort. When Peyton goes down, somebody else steps up.”

Adleman also explained how losing Watson so early in the game affected the Nuggets defensive rotations and allowed things to open up for Rockets star center Alperen Sengun, who registered a triple-double of his own to rival Nikola Jokic’s 39-point triple-double. 

“It affected not only the game plan, but the rotation itself,” Adelman said. “Sometimes as people go out, we already have people out. You can't just run those guys into the ground. You almost have to recreate the rotation you went into the game with. I thought it got Sengun going a little bit because we had to put different matchups on different people. He got into space and scored.

“But I give our guys so much credit. We were doubling a lot. We're flying around, we're rotating.

And then I'm asking you to also keep them off the glass. It’s not easy.”